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It Was the Control Spirit–Shall I Never be Delivered from this Mystery?
The Christian Bible tells us plainly there will be a great increase in demon activity as we approach the end of human history. The Apostle makes specific reference to this in 1 Timothy 4.1. The Book of Revelation, chapters 16 and 18, predicts almost universal demonic domination in the final days of God’s judgments on the Earth. This surge of demonism will be amazingly deceptive, luring the masses and even converting nominal Christians. Veneration for the evil spirits will lead to depraved conduct, and the pinnacle of demonic achievement will be their control of World leaders. As incredible as it may seem, this revelation from the Word of God assures us that dependence on these unseen spiritual forces will increase even as scientific knowledge increasing. There is a lot of reality and power that evil spirits possess. Many people have become involved in communication with evil spirits, these spirits—both appealing and loathsome—enslave them, but Jesus Christ can set them free. There are people in this World that have firsthand experience dealing with spirits. Spiritualism is very attractive because it promises knowledge of the future and communication with dead loved ones. Many people will be influenced by demonic spirits in this way without realizing it. However, the only sure guide into the shadowy spirit World is the Christian Bible, and we neglect it at the peril of our souls. The person who denies the phenomena of spiritism today is not entitled to be called a skeptic, one is simply ignorant. A finial, clinching reason for our refusal to consider any of today’s seers as divinely inspired is our conviction that the gift of prophecy ceased when the Scriptures were completed. Prophets uttered truths they had received directly from God, and the Lord used this means of revelation during the years from the creation of man until the time of Malachi. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
From Malachi until John the Baptist can on the scene, Israel had not prophets. Then, in the brief period between Christ’s ascension and the completion of the gospels and epistles, the gift of prophecy was present in the Church. However, gradually the New Testament writings took the place of a prophetic ministry. The apostles were aware that God had given them special authority when they wrote, and that believers were to place greater value upon these gospels and epistles than so-called prophetic declarations. For example, although Paul was not speaking primarily of prophets, he definitely asserted the authoritative nature of his writings when he made the demand, “if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him,” reports 2 Thessalonians 3.14. Again, writing to the Christians in Corinth, he said that his words were they very commandment of God, and that they constituted the standard by which God’s people could evaluate the declarations of men considered to be prophets. “If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord,” reports 1 Corinthians 14.37.” The priority of these apostolic writing over the declarations of other humans who claimed to be prophets is further indicated by the apostle John as he brought the book of Revelation to a close. He know that he was writing the authoritative message of God, and therefore could issues this strong warning: “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book; and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book,” reports Revelations 22.18, 19. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
No one claiming a prophetic gift had any right to tamper with the written Word. It is obvious, therefore, that the inspired writing of the apostles gradually superseded prophetic utterances in the early church. Special gifts like prophecy, knowledge, wisdom, healings, and tongues were gradually withdrawn, and in 1 Corinthians 13 Paul declared that the quiet, unselfish pursuit of love is a far more excellent path than that of always desiring the more spectacular activities. He continued, “whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; where there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophecy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, the that which is in part shall be done away,” reports 1 Corinthians 13.8-10. When Paul writes these words, the New Testament as a whole was not yet in existence, but he declared that special gifts of the Holy Spirit such as prophecy and tongues would become a thing of the past. They would merge into the complete revelation of the New Testament and no longer be needed. They belonged to the childhood state of the Church; therefore, we conclude that the gift of prophecy cannot be in existence today. God has spoken in the Scriptures, and it is to them that we must turn to find His message to us. No one today can rightly claim that he speaks a message by direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We do not believe that anyone today who claims to receive visions directly from the Lord should be acknowledged as a spiritual leader. None of these so-called prophets are correct in every single prediction they make, and therefore they do not meet the test the Lord prescribed in Deuteronomy 18. Most of them are also guilty of disobeying the Biblical warnings of Paul against occultism. In addition, they tend to speak ambiguously and manifest an ignorance of what the Bible really teaches. Finally, we believe that we have logical, historical, and Biblical grounds for affirming that the gift of prophecy was temporary, and that it gave way and disappeared from the Church when the New Testament was completed. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
In the year, 1663, a quaintly humorous story of a most persistent and troublesome ghostly visitant comes from the Ireland, though in this particular instance its efforts to right the wrong did not produce a lawsuit: the narrator was Mr. Alcock, who appears in the preceding story. One David Hunter, who was neat-herd to the Bishop of Down (Jeremy Taylor) at his house near Portmore, saw one night, as he was carrying a log of wood into the dairy, an old woman who he did not recognize, but apparently some subtle intuition told him that she was not of mortal mould, for incontinent he flung away the log, and ran terrified into his house. She appeared again to him the next night, and from that on nearly every night for the next nine months. “Whenever she came he must go with her through the Woods at a good round rate; and the poor fellow look’d as if he was bewitch’d and travell’d off his legs.” Even if he were in bed he had to rise and follow her wherever she went, and because his wife could not restrain him she would rise and follow him till daybreak, although no apparition was visible to her. The only member of the family that took the matter philosophically was Hunter’s little dog, and he became so accustomed to the ghost that he would inevitably bring up the rear of the strange procession—if it be true that the lower classes dispensed with the use of night-garments when in bed, the sight must truly have been a most remarkable one. All this time the ghost afforded no indication as to the nature and object of her frequent appearances. “But one day the said David going over a Hedge into the Highway, she came just against him, and he cry’d out, ‘Lord bless me, I would I were dead; shall I never be delivered from this misery?’ At which, ‘And the Lord bless me too,’ says she. ‘It was very happy you spoke first, for till then I had no power to speak, though I have followed you so long. My name,’ says she, ‘is Margaret—-. I lived here before the Wat, and had one son by my Husband; when he died I married a soldier, by whom I had several children which the former Son maintained, else we must all have starved. He lives beyond the Ban-water; pray go to him and bid him dig under such a hearth, and there he shall find 28s. Let him pay what I owe in such place, and the rest to the charge unpay’d at my funeral, and go to my Son that lives here, which I had by my latter Husband, and tell him that he lives a very wicked and dissolute life, and is very unnatural ad ungrateful to his Brother that nurtured him, and if he does not mend his life God will destroy him.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
David Hunter told her he never knew her. “No,” says she, “I died seven years before you came into this Country”; but she promised that, if he would carry her message, she would never hurt him. However, he deferred doing what the apparition bade him, with the result that she appeared the night after, as he lay in bed, and struck him on the shoulder very hard; at which he cried out, and reminded her that she had promised to do him hurt. She replied that was if he did her message; if not, she would kill him. He told her he could not go now, because the waters were out. She said that she was content that he should wait until they were abated; but charged him afterwards not to fail her. Ultimately he did her errand, and afterwards she appeared and thanked him. “For now,” said he, “I shall be at rest, and therefore I pray you lift me up from the ground, and I will trouble you no more.” So Hunter lifted her up, and declared afterwards the she felt just like a bag of feathers in his arms; so she vanished, and he heard most delicate music as she went off over his head. In the late 19th century, Mrs. Winchester used to have séances in the Blue Séance Room in her mansion, which was constantly being expanded and remolded for 38 years. It once stood nine stories high, had 500 rooms, and was approximately 65,000 square feet. Here is the transcript from one of her sessions: “I could hardly wait for the next séance to take place so I could talk to my departed husband….six more days seemed like an eternity. I had not doubt that William would be present, though we had failed on the first attempt. I had talked with the spirit World many times in in my forty-four years, just as I talked with anyone else. I had listened to the spirits give lectures, sermons, exhortations, and counsel to the construction crew assembled at the seances in my mansion. However, I never tired to talk with a dead person. My family, especially my mother’s relatives, had been involved with spiritualism for several generations. They came to the United States of America on the Mayflower. My father was a very religious mand. He often remarked that if any of his children were to die, he would become a spiritualist. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
“On March 7th 1881, my brave forty-four-year-old husband died, and soon afterward a family from New Haven, Connecticut, told me they had contacted the spirit of my dead husband and the he was eager to talk to me. I was very excited, and I agree to let the spiritus to come to my home at the appointed time for a séance in the Bule Séance Room. There were perhaps thirteen people gathered in my home for the séance. We sat quietly, meditatively, and expectantly. The medium sat at one end of our circle of chairs and led us in singing hymns and prayer. It did not seem strange to us to open the séance by saying the Lord’s Prayer. We even ended: ‘…in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.’ A prayer for a séance went like this: ‘Eternal God and Father of Lights, we gather as thy expectant children. We are eager to communicate with the spirit World and the spirits of our departed friends and loved ones. We pray that you would look favorably upon us. Bless us this night with communications from our friends in the spirit World. In the name of the great Father of Lights. Amen.’ Then we sang familiar church hymns such as: ‘Face to Face,’ ‘In the Garden,’ ‘Beautiful Isle of Somewhere,’ and ‘Nearer My God to Thee.’ While we were singing, the medium slumped into unconsciousness, and before long a strange voice spoke through the medium’s lips; it was the control spirit. ‘Good evening, my children. There are many of the departed here, and all are eager to speak with you. The spirit World welcomes you to another opportunity to contact your departed loved one.’ We listened eagerly to the spirit as the medium sat limply, eyes closed, in her chair. The spirit said that a family was present whose departed loved one wanted very much to speak with them, but since he had been in the spirit World so short a time he was still adjusting to his new spiritual dimension and would have to communicate the following week. That was a terrible disappointment, and the whole family could hardly wait until the next séance when we could contact my beloved husband. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
“At the second meeting we encountered another phase of spiritualism, the gold key séance (sometimes called a séance of vocal revelation). A metal key, made of solid gold, stood upright in a damp saucer on a table in the middle of the room. When the medium entered her trance, the solid gold key rose slowly from the table and dipped into a horizontal position. Eerily, it began spinning with a soft whir and moved around the room, stopping at intervals in midair. I sat rigid in amazement. I saw the floating key, but I could not believe it. The others in the séance seemed to accept the experience as a very common thing. The key went first to my father and then to other members of our family. And we heard a voice, supposedly my departed husband’s, but at first we could not distinguish the words. Then the key came to me. My first reaction was to grab it, and I snatched at the key, but it darted away with amazing swiftness. I tried again, but it moved faster than I did. The key finally settled directly in front of me, just out of my reach. Then the control spirit launched into a lecture about my unbelief, speaking through the unconscious medium. She said if I were to get anything for this meeting, I must conduct be patient. As my emotions subsided, the golden key hovered closer and closer to me until it was near my ear, the key was stroking my hair in the way my husband used to comb it. A voice flowed from the key saying, ‘I love you; I love you.’ It was supposed to be my husband’s voice, but it did not sound like him to me. Everyone else accepted it as William’s voice, but I was disappointed; it was not William. That was the first of many occasions when he supposedly spoke to the family, but I was never convinced. At later séances my niece and I were told we could become gifted spirit mediums. By following the instructions of the spirit voice in the séance of passivity we would in time be able to contact the spirits in our own home. My niece and I began to practice the séance of passivity for thirteen minutes each evening. During these periods we tried to blot out every conscious thought from our minds. Eventually we could sit for an hour and thirteen minutes without being distracted by a single conscious thought. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
“In one of the longer periods, the phenomenon finally took place that we had been waiting for. I witnessed the spirit taking control of my niece as she lost consciousness and a voice completely foreign to her soft contralto boomed out: ‘My child, be not afraid. You have done well. If you only believe, greater things than these you will do. Continue in this way, and the marvels of the spirit World will be revealed to you.’ With that, the spirit departed and my niece regained consciousness. She asked what had happened, and I told her the words of the spirit. She was thrilled! She had arrived at a coveted place of spiritual development, and from that time on we held séances in my mansion in private, with my young niece as the gifted medium. Some people say this is all a hoax, that spirits do not talk with human beings and that floating objects are mere trickery. I would agree that a great many of the eerie demonstrations we hear about are clever illusions, but I believe on the basis of personal experience and the plain words of Scripture that spirits of the invisible World do communicate with humanity and do wield supernatural power in our visible World. And the ominous truth is that these spirits are not from God, but fallen angles controlled by Satan. Their unholy mission is to lead human beings—by refined or gross means—away from dependence on God, their Creator, and they are active in spiritualist churches, séances, psychic phenomena, witchcraft, and idol-worship. However, some of these spirits are good and convey helpful messages. Yet, individuals and nations who reject God, no matter how educated and prosperous they are, fall prey to the other god, Satan.” Believe it or not, the key to the massive front door was made of solid gold and the keys for the other 2,000 doors of this Eight Wonder of the World filled two water buckets. One day, Mrs. Winchester stood at the sitting-room window, after the butler left her, looking at the dull grey of the January sky and the yellowing pastures of the dairy county. There was no rain, but also no gleam of sunshine. I always wanted a private tour of her mansion. My father was on the construction crew and he promised one day when Mrs. Winchester was away, I would get my chance. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
One morning Mrs. Winchester went off in her carriage for a trip to San Francisco, California. My father let me in the mansion and told me I could look around, but warned me not to touch anything and not to get lost. I walked through the beautiful jewel crested front doors, and they closed behind me. I did not think anything of it. However, suddenly, I stumbled, tripped over the carpet, and fell on my hands and knees, managing—and only just managing—to save the lantern which I carried from being extinguished in the fall. The floor of the mansion was very uneven in that part, and I had inadvertently walked into a sort of loose floor board, more or less I was pulverized. I rose and looked about me. evidently, I had strayed from the direct track, thanks to my old habit of indulging in reverie, and had mechanically taken a wrong turning among some of the many passages. The place where I now found myself was by no means similar to the part of the mansion that was in full yield, and from which I had wandered. Instead of being dry, airy, and full of life and bustle, the passage where I stood was damp, and quite silent, not a sound being audible except the drip, drip of blood that oozed through the roof in fifty places, and fell splashing into the little pools of bright red blood that lay among the bricks. The floor was of brick, not wood. It was plain that I was in some neglected corner of the mansion; it was plain, to, that I had lost my way. Now the warning my father gave me came back to me with unwelcome emphasis, and as I breathed with difficulty the clammy and heavy air of the mansion, a shudder ran through my whole frame. In the next instant, I rallied my courage, laughed contemptuously at my own fears, and stepped out manfully along the passage. I knew I must have entered the mansion from the right. But alas! On emerging from the hallway into a sort of square chamber, in which some rude benches, carved out of mahogany, were cut in the gleaming walls, I found that no less than thirteen openings gave access to different parts of the mansion, and I was fairly at fault. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
How I had strayed so far without paying any attention to the bearings of my heedless course, is what, perhaps, none but an absent man can understand; and I, unluckily, was an absent man. It was strange to be lost, or to roam in circles among the great hallways of this estate, and to be lost in what seemed to be an underground tomb, which had dank air and darkness for miles to come. I remarked, too, that the candle in my lantern would not last very long—from one to two hours perhaps, but certainly not longer. It was annoying, very annoying, to be left thus alone. I did not like to own to myself that it was dangerous. How strange it was, I thought, that I did not hear the very faintest sound from the scene of all those busy construction workers working on the Winchester mansion. I listened—listened intently. Not a sound; not so much as the faint hammer; not the welcoming sound of a human voice; not the tramp of one of those shaggy ponies that drew the wood. I had never before realized what the weight of solitude—enforced solitude—could be. I listened; I waited. Not the faintest indication that any other mortal but myself was below ground, reached my ears. Angry with my own fears, vexed with my own carelessness, that had brought me to this pass, I selected at hazard one of the passages opening into the mansion, and entered it, walking fast, but holding the lantern well in front, to avoid any fresh trip falls which might lie in wait for the unwary foot. The hallway was but some thirteen yards long, and then into two narrower corridors, the widest of which led me to a narrow pathway of tiny stairs that seemed to zigzag up the mansion. I entered it stooping, but soon found it was so dizzying that I should be obliged to proceed on hands and knees, if at all, so I retraced my steps: and, tracing them to another stairwell, and found myself atop of the stairs, but unable to proceed any further for the top was cut off by the ceiling. I was wondering aimlessly, as in a labyrinth, unless my candle was spent, and then I should be indeed in sorry case. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Already my feet were cold and wet with the tenacious brine; the cold moist air had brought back my cough, and I shivered in the chill atmosphere of the vault where were I stood. Yet, perhaps there were people near me, within earshot all the time, for I could not believe that the mansion had been suddenly deserted. I shouted, and shouted again, the many hallways and rooms giving back the sound of my voice with strange and sullen dissonance. Presently, though no answering call was returned, I saw a light, far off and dim, but rapidly advancing towards me along the gallery that lay on my left, and which was one of the six I have mentioned. Nearer and nearer it came; no flare of torches, but the steady gleam of a small lamp; and then, to my surprise, I saw that the human figure that soon became visible was not that of a construction worker. The light of the lantern fell faintly on the pale face, colourless as marble, but delicate and pretty enough, of a young and slender girl—a lady, evidently, by her dress, and whom I instantly conjecture to have been one of the staff. However, how she came there, and alone? Was she lost, like me? or—“Did you not call a minute ago? I can show you the way, if you like.” Common-place words these; but they were spoken with a peculiar quiet intonation, that impressed me in spit of myself. The voice was sweet and low, but almost solemn in its calm. There was something strange, too, in the composure and the unsmiling gravity of one so young, while her very presence in the out-of-the-way part the mansion perplexed me. My first idea was, that the young lady, like myself, had lost her way in the intricacies of the mansion; but this supposition her confidence of bearing seemed to contradict. No doubt she knew the mansion well, or she would scarcely have offered to guide me to safety. This was an additional proof the she could not have been one of the merry, rosy-cheeked servants in the mansion. Most likely, some young lady had entered the mansion to see the mysteries inside, and she was some resident in the neighbourhood. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
Nonetheless, the beauty in this place was in the infinite variety of fantastic columns, some of pure white marble, others of mahogany, and shimmering gold wallpaper, that composed the walls. As the feeble light of the lanterns flashed on the pellucid surfaces and frail, some more elaborate in the intricacies of their mouldings than the than the Corinthian or Byzantine, I could not restrain my exclamations of surprise and delight. For a moment I forgot the cold, the damp, the discomfort, and said, half to myself: “What a wonderful sight! If a human artist had carved those delicate capitals and rich decorations, what a rush would there be to see his handiwork! But I dare say even the county handbook does not condescend to describe this place, which is worthy to be the palace of the king of gnomes.” “Few know of this place,” said my conductress, in the same measured, passionless voice as before. She had stopped when I stopped, and she stood motionless as a statue, and as pale as if she had been a figure hewn out of alabaster, rather than a creature of flesh and blood. It was the first word of the nature of a remark which had fallen from her, and I tried to draw her into conversation by descanting on the beauty of the singular grotto, and the spaciousness of the mansion. She said very little, but her reticence sis not seem to be caused by any poverty of intellect. There was, however, a peculiar want of warmth or enthusiasm, whether the subject were are or nature, in what little my fair guide could be induced to say. Nor was she by any means communicative as to herself. My attempts to discover whether she really lived in the neighbourhood, were quietly baffled, and when I said that “doubtless her friends would begin to be alarmed at her long absence for which I feared that my own stupid blundering was to blame,” she was merely bowed, and led the way as before. On we went, through a network of hallways, that only seemed to grow more Daedalian every moment, but through which my companion glided along the as unswervingly as if she held in her hand an unfailing clue. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Many of these galleries were evidently the work of man. In all, however, the air was heavy, chill, and moist, and blood dripped from the walls, and fell gurgling down hidden fissures into some unseen depths below. I was confident that I had passed none of these places that day, and began to suspect that my guide was leading me a long round, so as to shew me all the lions of the mansion, instead of taking a short-cut to the workings. At another time, this desire to impress a stranger with a full notion of local marvels would have amused me; but my cough got worse; I shivered, and longed for the excursion to come to a close. Yet there was an awkwardness in suggesting this. I ventured on a safe remark. “It is bitterly cold,” said I, with a shudder, for the damp seemed to be piercing to the very marrow of my bones. “Do you not find it so?” “Very cold!” She said no more; but those two common-place words were spoken in a voice that awed me, somehow, in spite of myself, and seemed to freeze me into silence. On we went, and I trusted that we may be approaching the work-part of the mansion, for the candle in my lantern was reduced to a mere morsel, and must soon be burned out. However, ill as I felt, and hard as it was for my weak lungs to endure the unwholesome air, I almost forgot this in my perplexity as to my conductress. I could not make her out at all. I have met with romantic young ladies, silly young ladies, sensible young ladies, even haughty and vain young ladies, but never with anyone like my guide. Why was she leading me thus, what I felt must be a circuitous course through the mansion? Why—She came to a dead stop, slowly-turned, and confronted me. The hood of her grey cloak, an old-fashion article of attire, such as I had not seen for many years, was drawn over her head, and it threw her pretty face partly into shadow; but her eyes were bright and clear, though there was something in their cold steady look that made me shiver afresh, as if the air of the mansion had grown even more icy and oppressive than before. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
“Tell me about yourself. Tell me what you are going to do. What are your plans, I mean,” she said in the same manner as before, like a sleepwalker unconsciously uttering words that volition does not prompt. I laughed, and blurted out some could-be witty rejoinder on my own good-fortune in having inspired so charming a person with sufficient interest in my fate to suggest the question; but the flippant words died away on my lips half spoken, as she waved her hand, not impatiently, not coquettishly, but with a calm dignity of bearing that matched well her bloodless cheek and the carriage of her proud head. “You are to sail in the Chester—is it not so?” said this singular girl, without a smile or a falter in her low but very distinctive voice. I owned the fact, in so slight surprise. I had not mentioned to no one at the Winchester Mansion the name of the ship in which my passage was taken. The idea of a mystification, of a trick, dawned upon me, but I was at a loss to guess how my beautiful nightmare of a guide could have obtained the information she evidently possessed. Did she know more of men than this? My name, for instance, my profession, and my reason for quitting the Bank of Italy? If so, at any rate she made no parade of her knowledge. She merely raised her hand for a moment—it was ungloved, and there were rings of price sparkling on the thin white fingers—and her eyes seemed to gather a new expression of sadness and warning as she said: “Beware of the Chester! If you love your life—and on, it is bitter to die young—do not sail in that ship.” Slowly the hand she had lifted in warning fell to her side, and holding up the lamp as before, she turned away, and preceded me along the galleries. I followed her, perplexed, half angry, half alarmed. I began to fear that I was the sport of a mad woman. And then a new fancy sized me. Perhaps I myself might be delirious, and the mansion, the endless galleries, and my beautiful nightmare guide, were visions of a disordered brain, a sweet dream or a frightful nightmare, from which I vainly strove to awake. Presently, it occurred to me for the first time that my new-found friend’s feet made no sound as they trod the wooden floor, and twisted stairways. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Certain it was that she moved firmly and swiftly on, without any sign of difficulty or fatigue, while I stumbled and slipped, slipped and stumbled, and at times found it hard to keep up with her. However, as regarded the noiselessness of her tread, I could not solve the doubt. If I stopped, she stopped too, not after a pause, but instantly. And I heard nothing but my own labouring breath and hacking cough, and the sound of my own weary feet. A little while, and even this was forgotten in a new source of apprehension. I had for some time vaguely conceived the idea that, as in labyrinth, we were walking in a circle; and gradually I began to fancy that I had seen this or that sofa and parlour table or that mahogany arch before, and that I had passed through some of the corridors at least once before. However, suspicion was changed to certainty when I suddenly espied, lying on the ground in one of the galleries, one of my own gloves. I had dropped this glove some time before, for I had missed it soon after the arrival of the Unknown. As I picked it up, I glanced keenly around me, and thought I recognized the opening that led into the hall of fires. I was right; in another moment I had followed my mysterious guide into the hall of fires itself. More than an hour’s weary toil, for my candle was all but spent, had brought us back to the point from which we had started. I was angry at last; all my involuntary awe for my strange conductress was lost, and I stamped my foot hard upon the floor as I asked if she had been amusing herself at my expense, or whether she, too, were unaware of the topography of the mansion, and had misled me by accident. I spoke in wrath, and almost in menace; but there was no reply, save one long moan, as from a child in pain, that rang sadly through the mansion. I turned my head, but I could see nothing; and when I again confronted what I now deemed my treacherous guide, a sort of mist seemed to dim my eyes, and I saw, or thought I saw, her form grow faint and indistinct, fading and fading like breath upon a mirror, but with still the same calm face, the same grave look of sorrow and warning, until that too faded, and nothing was left opposite to me—nothing but a masonry wall. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
I sprang forward, incredulous, and touched the wall with my hand. As I did so, a repetition of the moaning cry made me start, and far down the passage where I had seen her first, I saw her again—the pure, pale outline of the young face, the tall slender form in the grey mantel, with the hood drawn over the head, the lamp shining in the outstretched hand. How came she there? “This is too much!” cried I passionately, and convinced that I was the victim of a trick, though how such a trick could have been effected, I did not care to consider. “I will not bear this juggling. I will not—” As I spoke, I darted forward to overtake the receding figure, and my foot tripping among the loose stones of the floor, as I ran, I fell heavily, crushing the lantern beneath me, and being instantly involved in the demonic darkness. Bruised and hurt, I have no heed to the pain of the fall from the door to nowhere, but sprang up, and strained my eyes in the direction where the lamp had been last seen. There was not a spark—not a sound. No light, no rustle of her dress, no faint sound of a distant footfall, nothing but darkness and silence. Eagerly I listened, eagerly I watched, but in vain. I tried to call aloud, but my tongues refused its office; and when I did raise a weak shout, I felt natural repugnance to the darkness deepen as no answer came. “She is doing this to frighten me,” I murmured; “she is hiding behind some bush. Whoever she is, she could be cruel enough to leave me here in the dark alone, to perish.” Silence, still silence. Any sound, even that moan, at which my very heartstrings had quivered, would have been better than that. Darkness, blank, blank darkness. I tried to shout, tried to group my way back in, but I was limp. I had not the strength to rise. Oh, it was very cold, cold and dark. This must be death. “A drop more brandy, Jim; the last did him good, I cannot feel any pulse yet, though. Do not crowd so about him, lads. Give him air! That is enough brandy, do not leave off the chafing the hands. He will come round!” #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
With my dulled ear, I heard these words, but scarcely understood them, and from between the half-closed lids my weak eyes could feebly distinguish a glare of torches, and several rough me in construction garb, and one in black with a kind, shrewd face—the doctor, no doubt. I saw all his, in a stupid sort of indifferent way, as if he had been a pageant, and then I seemed to sink down into a black sea of roaring water, and fainted for the second time. I was in bed at last. I had been in bed some days, very ill, and with a brain too deadened, and a frame too exhausted, to take note of time. When my senses returned, I asked what was the date, and hearing it, knew that the Chester had sailed without me, and that my passage-money was lost. It was not for weeks, and until my slow convalescence had ripened into recovery from the illness brought on by cold and the wetting I had experienced, that the doctor asked me how I came to separate myself from the construction crew, and to get lost in the Winchester Mansion. “It so happened,” he said, “that work was suspended unusually early on that day, as there was a wake at Old Saint Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco, and the construction workers had a sort of half-holiday by annual custom. The mansion was therefore abandoned, and but for the lucky chance, that when you were missed at home, and inquiries were made, and intelligent boy, the son of another construction worker, declared that you have never left the estate at all, it is probable that no search would have taken place. As it was, long hours passed before a party started in quest for you; and it is fortunate they there were in time. The Winchester has witnessed more than one tragic incident, even in my day.” “To what do you allude, doctor?” asked I eagerly. “Three year ago, a young lady, a Miss Mary Seward, because separated from her friends, as you did, in that mansion,” answered the doctor. “I had not as yet settled in the district, and only know the details from report, and very imperfectly. I believe, however, that the poor girl, who had made one of a large family art, was bound on a visit to an aunt who lived in England; her own parents then residing at the Rengstoff House, near here. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
“The day was a stormy one; the carriages drove off in a heavy fall of rain; and I believe the missing one was understood by her mother to be staying at her aunt’s, and vice versa, for there was no alarm till help was impossible. The poor girl’s body was found—for she perished of cold and hunger in that maze of galleries. Bless me, how pale you look, my dear sir. Take some cordial, and lie down, and no more talking—not a word more, I insist.” I have no explanation of the above facts to offer. I have endeavoured, far from San Jose, to set down every detail of the occurrence as simply and succinctly as possible. If I could disabuse my mind of the ghastly doubt and horror that cling to it, and which haunt me when I recall the events of that day in the Winchester Mansion, I should be very thankful. The good doctor, when he heard my statement, did his best to convince me that what I saw was a mere hallucination, due to my disordered health and excited nerves. I wish I could think so; but further inquiries, made before I left San Jose, served to assure me that I was not the only person who was supposed to have seen the presence that I had beheld in the disused portion of the mansion. One word more. The warning was no idle one, though I doubt whether I should have been ashamed to have heeded it, had not illness chained me to my sick-bed. Before I was able to quit the Winchester Mansion, news came that a dense fog enveloped the iron and wood steamship City of Chester and its 106 passengers as they began the slow journey north from San Francisco Bay to Eureka. It was 1888, and family members bid their loved one’s safe passage from the Broadway dock as the vessel disappeared into the pea soup fog. Moments later, the Chester was split in two by a ship more than twice its size, killing 16 people—13 passengers, including two children and three crew members—and becoming the bay’s second-worst maritime disaster. Some people may believe all spirituals are evil and trying to harms us or that they are demonic, but it seems some are good and really trying to save our lives. Perhaps some of these spirits are our guardian angels. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
Winchester Mystery House
What a lovely weekend for a bit of mystery👻 winchestermysteryhouse.com
I Felt, My God, I Could Not Face this thing!
There are risks and costs to a program of action. Make sure that what you aspire to accomplish is worth accomplishing, and then throw your whole vitality into it. Excellence in education is the key to our nation’s future. Celibacy, of course, is a fundamental dimension of moral purity, and it provides disciplines that enhance mental and spiritual qualities. This allows one to sublimate the creative force into a God-directed, selfless love, the chaste joy of longing for the untouched beloved, a pure passion much like the agape ideal of many early Christian nuns. The focus on celibacy and the conservation of the creative force, allows the source of one’s spiritual power and their mystical ability to partake in God’s transcendental nature by transforming one’s energy into spiritual energy. Celibacy, therefore, is a critical instrument for achieving spiritual goals. All people are souls coupled with physical bodies, and they exist withing the chronological context of historical cycles of moral and physical decline. At the beginning, the ages were perfect and pure. Men and women were equal, and neither adversity nor affliction existed. The principal cause of this flawlessness was the absence of pleasures of the flesh. However, pleasures of the flesh entered the scene. Gradually, these Godly folk deteriorated, morally and physically, until corruption and torment prevailed. Heaven became hell, and the fleshly desires of the body came to dominate the World. Hand in hand with the degeneration of human standards came the bondage of humans, enslaved by another’s lust. The goal of the celibates is to end this cycle and purify themselves on Earth so they may be reborn at or soon after the pristine beginning of each successive cycle. They wish to be liberated from sinful births rather than rebirth itself. The only was they can achieve this is by renouncing the evil that is pleasures of the flesh and adopting complete celibacy. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
Celibacy promises enormous reward. To begin with, it fulfills the theological condition for assuring perfect future births. It also relives people from the chains of marriage. Cleansed of pleasures of they flesh, some find their true spiritual identities and such off their ties with the ungodly, material World. It religious terms, it promised unheard-of opportunities that allowed individuals to move to positions of power. Inspired with these new ideas, people explained to their significant other that they should live together chastely, loving each other with a pure and spiritual devotion. Pleasures of the flesh, conversely, has overpopulated and made a slum of the planet. Some liken pleasures of the flesh as to foraging about in a sewer. Pleasures of the flesh love has no vindicative features, either. True love is loving someone’s essence—one’s soul. Pleasures of the flesh expends previous energy. Lust renders people powerless and demands for its fulfillment. Celibacy allows people to be pure and liberates individuals from bondage and frees them to achieve the enormous power of absolute chastity. Ethics is treated separately only as a matter of experience. Morality is grounded in our essential being. In this respect, these principals of ethics stand in continuity with traditional Roman Catholic natural law ethics and other forms of moral realism. What is morally right and good is the realization through action of human natural potentialities. These ethics are not judgmental, but verge on intuitionism because of its appeal to the “silent voice” of conscience about essential nature. Ethics on this point deals with how to specify the precise relation between casuistry, that is, reasoning about moral cases, and claims about human nature. If we are going to reason rightly about moral cases, must we assume something about the nature of human beings? #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
If we cannot reach agreement about the nature of human life or its good—a consensus difficult to reach in wildly pluralistic societies—does this invalidate casuistic thinking? Theologians and philosophers currently have attempted to server the connection between casuistry and claims about human nature. Ethics, while itself deficient on matters of casuistry, challenges this move by questioning the point of morality itself. If morality is about the realization of human potentialities, the come conception of human nature seems required in addressing practical moral questions. The demand on the casuist is either to show that this is not the point of morality so that no claim about human nature is needed in ethics or, conversely, to provide a different account of human nature, such as the found in traditional natural law ethics. Morality, then, is grounded in our essential being. What is means, is that morality finds its source in God as the ground and power of being. Ethics is in this respect necessarily theological in character. However, this raises two questions. First, how is the idea of God related to some conception of what is morally good? That is, even if one grants the claim about the religions character or morality, it is another question to ask about the content of claims about God and goodness. How does a conception of the good, whether grounded in claims about human nature or historically specific beliefs, relate to Christian ideas about God and agape? Some moral theorists argue that in ethics we need only a thing theory of the good, because the point of the moral life in a pluralistic society is just relations between persons rather than establishing the human good. At issues then are the substance of claims about the human good, the status of those claims, their place in ethics, and the relation between those claims and discourse about God. This leads to the second question: Given the fact of moral diversity on this planet, can one sustain the claim that morality is theistic? #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
Indeed, is that claim actually needed in ethics? Is an appeal to agape morally adequate in our time? Put differently, the concern to combat moralism and relativism must be rethought in terms of the reality of moral pluralism and also of debates about how to understand moral goodness. The final challenge to this thought poses to theological ethics is at the level of basic moral problems. The moral problem is the fragmentation of life; the moral act is a victory of self-integration against forces that lead to human estrangement. This means that the power to act is essential to how one conceives of the human good because only through exercise of power in action is life realized. Now in our time, technology has radically increased human power to the point that we can alter the environment and even the human species. This makes the reality of power and human responsibility basic to contemporary ethical reflection. These concerns have been addressed in matters of terms of the dominance of technical rationality in the modern World and also theologically by understanding the term God as symbolizing the power of being itself. The question that remains open, however, is the extent to which claims about rationality and the symbol God can contribute to current ethical reflection on the reality of human power and the demands of responsibility. Thus one challenges theological ethics in terms of patterns of practical moral reasoning, the relation between claims about God and those of moral goodness, and also the contribution of theological discourse to reflection on human power and responsibility. Any assessment of these ethics in terms of the history of thought or contemporary ethical reflection must engage one’s work on each of these points. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
God as the Ground and Aim of our being has been transformed into a multiplicity of laws, partly doctrinal and partly ethical. The moral “yoke” that Jesus wished to make easy had only been made heavier, and the message of grace has largely been lost, despite the numerous liturgical prayers for the forgiveness of sins. They do not express the vision that appears in Paul’s Letters and John’s Gospel, or is expressed in the seventh petition of the Lord’s Prayer—“save us from the evil one”—namely, the image of a demonic power ruling the universe and driving humans into separation from God and into hostility against Him. The prayers for forgiveness have, for many people, only the function of relieving the uneasy conscience produced by trespasses against traditional and often absurd rules of behaviour, mostly a prohibitive character. However, they do not express the great paradox, that there is a reunion with the eternal “Ground of our being” without “right” action on our part, without being “good people,” or the “people of good will.” Therefore, despite liturgical formulae, hymns, and the reading o lessons from the Pauline Epistles, the message of grace has been lost. Grace as the power of accepting the person who is unacceptable, and of healing the person who is mortally sick, has disappeared behind the preaching of the religious and moral laws. It is understandable that people, in view of this graceless moralism turn to secular ethics. However, when they find nothing more than the logical analysis of ethical theory, they turn easily to a cynical relativism or to a totalitarian absolutism in ethics, each often a consequence of the other. The question that is implicit in this situation is: Can we point to something that transcends both graceless moralism and normless relativism in ethical theory and moral action? #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
The response of Christianity is the message that a new reality has appeared with the coming of the Christ, a power of being in which we can participate, and out of which true thought and right action can follow, however fragmentarily. We find analogous affirmations in other religions and even in secular movements of an implicitly religious character, such as nationalism, socialism, and liberal humanism. Being precedes action in everything that is, including man, although in man as the bearer of freedom, previous action also determines present being. This answer stand in opposition to both moral legalism and amoral lawlessness. It affirms morality and points beyond it to its religious foundation. If morality is intrinsically religious, as religion is intrinsically ethical, neither is dependent on the other, and neither can be substituted for the other. Power is protean. When, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States of American and the Soviet Union squared off against each other, the power of each was a function of bombs, ships, missiles, planes, tanks, armored divisions. These were the factors that each had to reckon with as it braced itself for struggle. However, within each nation the enormous power, respectively, of Kennedy and of Khrushchev was charismatic, depending upon the ability of each to inspire belief that one dividually did possess those magical powers which the peoples of those countries had as children experienced in their fathers and now unconsciously imputed to their leaders. When a profound patriotic passion is aroused, it will make people weep, and evokes and shapes in them a mood of fervent devotion and self-sacrifice. As people listen, more and more will they want to go into the battle field. It is considered a great honor to die for such a powerful leader. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
Most significant power is composite, being both instrumental and charismatic. Instrumental power is that which accrues in consequence of competence at the work of the World—the growing of wheat, the building of houses, the designing of an airplane, the composing of a sonnet. The smaller the extent of power, the more likely it is to be instrumental. The greater the power, the more likely it is to be charismatic. Many of the greatest World leaders have held power primarily by virtue of their ability to embody protection from our deepest fears and gratification of our primitive and grandiose fantasies, and perhaps not at all by virtue of competence at directing the affairs of a nation. Indeed, some such leaders, far from being competent to govern, lead the nations for which they are responsible straight to destruction. Once nature was the danger and the challenge. The cave drawings of Stone Age man bear witness to his preoccupying concerns with animals as a source of food and as a source of danger. The ability to elude these animals, to capture or to kill them, was the locus of power. Now anyone can shoot a rifle, no animal poses a threat, the ability to fell a charging elephant wins us no fame, perhaps even contempt, and we know that we may, if careless, destroy animals utterly. Most significant power now is power over people. The ability to win the respect, the belief, the support, the allegiance, the following, the obedience, of people—this is power. Morality, law, and custom comprise the rules by which the group expect us, as individuals, to live. These rules allow for a modest accumulation of power by way of instrumental competence. If we respect the rules, we cannot hope for more. We shall be conformists, the salt of the Earth but never its giants. A more venturesome order of normality calls for one to be as free in pursuit of power as a prudent, though often but nominal, regard for rules will permit. With less than that prudent regard, one is likely to land in disfavor or in jail—though sometimes, with a little luck, an adventurous thug may become a ruler. With more than a prudent regard one is disabled in the race. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
Neurotics are those who are crippled in the pursuit of power by internal constraints, impediments built into character by childhood experience. All of us start out weak in the hands of the strong, and a parent inclined to exploit that discrepancy can teach a child that any transgression of rules will yield pain and humiliation. Such an early education can bring it about that in later life, long after the tyrant is dead, any tentative reaching for power will be aborted by anxiety. The awareness of vulnerability prompts one to look about carefully, to take the measure of things. It leads to knowledge, is essential to good judgement. Without it one’s vision of one’s self and the World is determined, not by the way things are but by one’s will, one’s desire. When power is absolute, distortion is extreme; the real World is replaced by fantasy. When one possesses greater power than any despot of the past, one will ask for ultimate power: Every individual will henceforth follow this person’s personal order of suffer death. The congressional deputies will enthusiastically and unanimously approve the measure. One will now, legally, be above any law. That is why it is important that we do not have one party with a supermajority. However, people are so unwillingly to talk about politics to the extent that they ignore what is going on, and this can eventually become the result. So empowered, and thereby more and more out of touch with the reality one is imperiously undertaking to shape and to control, and with no compunction to heed the advice of one’s general, who are in touch, one will proceed to make those disastrous mistakes which will led to the destruction of the army and the loss of the war. Nothing within the state impedes the pursuit of power by the state. Empires expand. Any of them, are it able, will encompass the World. They go as far as they can, stop only where the lines of communication and supply are stretched too thin, where the conduits of power can no longer deliver effective force. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
In the individual, however, morality is a brake and may at any point set a limit. A truly Christian position calls for the abnegation of power, requires one to give all one has to the poor, to be meek, to love one’s enemy, to turn the other cheek. A measure of the instinctual force of the drive for power is given by the rarity with which such an ethic has in fact been practiced. The other internal obstacle is fear. One can go quite far in the acquisition of instrumental power without struggling with another human being and hence without encounter fear, power growing as a function of one’s kill in becoming a good pianist, carpenter, bookkeeper, or surgeon. However, the point is reached eventually beyond which any further gain can be achieved only in struggle with another person, in defeating or besting or outmaneuvering someone. In such contest one is vulnerable, there is no sure win. One may show one’s self a fool, may be humiliated. Fear may become so intense that one’s life comes to be structed around it. Whoever arranges for oneself an isolated life (a write, an artist, a forest-fire watcher, a drawbridge keeper) or a vocation with built-in advantages over the people with whom one deal (a psychoanalyst, and anesthesiologist) is likely to be the who feels keenly the danger of pursuing power through interpersonal struggle. The hurdy-gurdy plays, and around and around they go, the charioteer, the legionnaire, the cuirassier, up and down, sailing around, the president, the foreign minister, the chiefs of staff, varnished faces frozen in arrogance and disdain, the bombardier, the cavalryman, the machine gunner, around and around, as the band plays on. When the oppressed take up arms and rebel, they do so in the name of principles that asset basic human rights and so constitute an insurgent morality which justified the overthrow of the existing order. The existing order has a morality of its own, an establishment morality, which holds that the security and welfare of each individual are contingent on the state, that the state therefore is owed allegiance, that its laws must be obeyed, its leaders respect it. It labels the leaders of the rebellion as traitors, criminal, fanatics, and will crush them if it can. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
As rebels confront government troops, so insurgent morality confronts established morality. If government troops prevail, the insurgent morality is discredited, disappears. If the rebels are victorious, the establishment morality is discredited, succeeded by the insurgent morality. In the latter event the insurgent morality comes to be allied with power, becomes the new establishment morality, ancillary to the safeguarding and expansion of power. In this new role it sanctifies power, reassures the now newly oppressed that their oppression is in the nature of things, perhaps ordained by divine will, that no protest is indicated but rather patience and cooperation, that all must make sacrifices, that the leaders act for the welfare of all, that laws must be obeyed. Thus a morality which began as protest against power becomes the servant of power. The insurgent morality in its insurgency declares that power is corrupt and tends to corrupt everyone and everything allied to it; and when the revolution succeeds, it proves the truth of its indictment by corrupting first those exalted principles under whose banners it rode to power, along with the warriors who bore them. The striking way in which the modern World is moving toward its doom is not accidental but predetermined. Yet this terrible inevitability is not imposed from without by arbitrary power. It arises from within, from the World’s own characteristics. During the First World War, a civilization ridden by pleasures of the flesh which had sought intense pleasures found intense pain. Did it learn the implicit lesson? No! It plunged more wildly than ever in the quest for joy involving pleasures of the flesh, only to find still worse agony in the Second World War. The more it has wasted the gift of life, the creative force, the more it has lost the essence of life, blood. The creative force of life is white blood. Nature has punished human’s careless dissipation of the one with a forced loss of the other. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
The time has come to teach the lesson of responsibility about pleasures of the flesh in clear words. If humanity refuses to learn and obey spiritual laws, the horror of a third World War, compared with which the second will be mere child’s play, cannot be escaped. It would be agreeable and pleasant to share such optimism about the non-inevitableness of war, but it would also be self-deceptive. When the terrors and horrors of one war fail to have the effect of arousing people to thinking for themselves instead of in a mass, that is to say, of seeking truth individually, then the war will repeat itself again and again. If the war comes, it will have been brought by the erring nations upon themselves. If the war is not to come, they must change their ideas and their actions now. Some believe that war might come in a few years’ time; it might also come in only one year’s time; but it would be folly to deny that it might not even come at all. If no efforts at all had ben made on both the physical and mystical planes to counteract the threatened conflict, it could have broken out in the Cuban crisis year. The situation is still an anxious one but it is not a hopeless one. Piety alone will not suffice to meet it, just as politics alone has already failed to do so. However, the mystical efforts are being kept up. War is not inevitable. No one knows the outcome of the tremendous struggle going on between the atheistic hate forces and the constructive love forces on the mental level. The intercessory and contributory meditations of a few knowledgeable sages afford whatever real hope exists today. If the peoples and leaders fail to respond to those contributions, they will then have to carry the responsibility for its destruction. It is folly not to see that war is inevitable, folly to blind oneself deliberately to what is coming merely because one dreads it. While our human interest and nature shudder at the though of such war, our human wisdom and insight have no doubt it will take place. The dander is not only that a Third World War will come, but that it will come during an inconvenient time. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
None of the wars which humankind have hitherto suffered was Armageddon, for the last war was fought out fully and extended its devastations only in three continents and partly on the fourth, but the fifth was not affected in the same way. When Armageddon comes, it will devastate five continents. The mass of people does not take to truly spiritual concepts. Extroversion, egoism, and preoccupation with personal or Worldly affairs keep out any interest or attention in such concepts. Only the crushing shock of atomic war will provide an impulsion toward them from without. Even the new polarization of attitudes which is emerging as a consequence of the war, is confused rather than clear-cut. The ghastly tragedy of this confusion would show itself at its very worst in Armageddon. In the Second World War the issues between good and evil were clear-cut and easily discernible. However, in the Third World War they would be confused, chaotic, and mixed. It does not require much perceptiveness to perceived the inevitability of Armageddon. This fear haunts millions today and is one of the impulsions to the search for spiritual comfort, in one group, and the search for forgetfulness in pleasures, with the larger group. We may face the tragic inevitability of a Third World War with fear and gloom or with calm and resignation. Many suicide attempts are preceded by a change in mood. The change may not be severe enough to warrant a diagnosis of mental disorder, but it does represent a significant shift from the person’s past mood. The most common change is an increase in sadness. Also common are increases in feelings of anxiety, tension, frustration, anger, or shame. In fact, the key to suicide may be “psychache,” a feeling of psychological pian that seems intolerable to the person. Suicide attempts may also be preceded by shifts in patterns of thinking. Individuals may become preoccupied with their problems, or mood will not change. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
Some clinicians believe that a feeling of hopelessness is the single most likely indicator of suicidal intent, and they take special care to look for signs of hopelessness when they access the risk of suicide. Many people who attempt suicide fall victim to dichotomous thinking, viewing problems and solutions in rigid either/or terms. Indeed, the “four-letter word” in suicide is “only,” as in “suicide was the only thing I could do.” In the following statement a woman who survived her leap from a building describes her dichotomous thinking at the time. She saw death as the only alternative to her pain. “I was so desperate. I felt my God, I could not face this thing. Everything was like a terrible whirlpool of confusion. And I though to myself: There is only one thing to do. I just have to lose consciousness. That is the only way to get away from it. The only way to lose consciousness, I thought, was to jump off something good and high.” Studies indicate that as many as 60 percent of the people who attempt suicide drink alcohol just before the act. Autopsies reveal that about 25 percent of these people are legally intoxicated. In fact, considering that coroners are more likely to classify deaths as accidental when they detect high alcohol levels, the excessive use of alcohol just before death by suicide is probably much higher. Such statistics suggest to many clinical researchers that alcohol often helps trigger suicidal behaviour. A variety of factors may account for this relationship between alcohol use and suicide. Alcohol’s disinhibiting effects may allow people who are considering suicide to overcome the fears that would otherwise restrain them. Alternatively, alcohol may contribute to suicide by lowering an individual’s inhibitions against violence and helping to release underlying aggressive feelings. Yet another possibility is that alcohol further impairs a suicidal person’s judgment and problem-solving abilities. Research suggests that the use of other kinds of drugs may have a similar tie to death by suicide, particularly in teenagers and young adults. A high level of heroine, for example, was found in the blood of a popular musician at the time the individual died by death from suicide. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
Holiday effect—studied in countries throughout Europe indicate the suicide rates tend to drop before Christmas and Easter but then increase after those holidays. Seasonal violence—although findings are sometimes mixed, many studies suggest that suicides committed by violent methods are highest during the spring and lowest in the late fall. Most common killings—more suicides (31,000) than homicides (23,000) are committed in the United State of America each year. Yet, economically and vocationally, a very large population of the young people are in a plight more drastic than anything so far mentioned. In our society as it is, there are not enough worthy jobs. However, if our society, being as it is, were run more efficiently and soberly, for a majority there would soon not be any jobs at all. There is at present nearly full employment and there may be for some years, yet a vast number of young people are rationally unemployable, useless. This paradox is essential to explain their present temper. Our society, which is not geared to the cultivation of its young, is geared to a profitable expanding production, a so-called high standard of living of mediocre value, a so-called high standard of living of mediocre value, and the maintenance of nearly full employment. Politically, the chief of these is full employment. In a crisis, when profitable production is temporarily curtailed, government spending increases and jobs are manufactured. In “normalcy”—a condition of slow boom—the easy credit, installment buying, and artificially induced demand for useless goods create jobs for all and good profits for some. Now, back when the pandemic started, when the stimulus attempted by hook or crook to put people back to work and give them money to revive a shattered economy, there was an outcry of moral indignation from the conservatives that many of the jobs were “boondoggling,” useless made-work. It was insisted, and rightly, that such work was demoralizing to the workers themselves. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
It was insisted, and rightly, that such work was demoralizing to the workers themselves. It is a question of a word, but a candid critic might certainly say that many of the jobs in our present “normal” production are useless made-work. The tail fins and built-in obsolescence might be called boondoggling. The $64,000 Question and the busy hum of Madison Avenue might certainly be called boondoggling. Certain tax-dodge Foundations are boondoggling. What of business lunches and expense accounts? fringe benefits? The comic categories of occupation in the building trades? the extra stage hands and musicians of the theater crafts? These jolly devices to put money back to work no doubt have a demoralizing effect on somebody or other (certainly on me, they make me green with envy), but where is the moral indignation from Top Management? Supposed we would cut out the boondoggling and gear our society to a more sensible abundance, with efficient production of quality goods, distribution in a natural market, counterinflation and sober credit. At once the work week would be cut to, stay, twenty hours instead of forty. (Important People have already mentioned the figure thirty.) Or alternately, half of the labor force would be unemployed. Suppose too—and how can we not suppose it?—that the automatic machines are used generally, rather than just to get rid of badly organized unskilled labor. The unemployment will be still more drastic. (To give the most striking example: in steel, the annual increase in productivity is 4 percent, the plants work at 50 percent of capacity, and the companies can break even stop producing at less than 30 percent of capacity. These are the conditions that forced the steel strike, as desperate self-protection.) Everybody knows this, nobody wants to talk about it much, for we do not know how to cope with it. The effect is that we are living a kind of lie. Long ago, labor leaders used to fight for the shorter work week, but not they do not, because they are pretty sure they do not want it. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
Indeed, when hours are reduced, the tendency is to get a second, part-time, job and raise the standard of living, because the job is meaningless and one must have something; but the standard of living is pretty meaningless, too. Nor is this strange atmosphere a new thing. For at least a generation the maximum sensible use of our productivity could have thrown a vast population out of work, or relieved everybody a lot of useless work, depending on how you take it. (Consider with how little cutback of useful civilian production the economy produced the war goods and maintained an Army, economically unemployed.) The plain truth is that at present very many of us are useless, not needed, rationally unemployable. It is this paradoxical atmosphere that young persons’ grow up. It looks busy and expansive, but it is rationally at a stalemate. A new civilization is forming. However, where do we fit into it? Do not today’s technological changes and social upheavals mean the end of friendship, love, commitment, community, and caring? Will not tomorrow’s electronic marvels make human relationships even more vacuous and vicarious then they are today? For example, so many people are impressed by the new BMW IX M60, which can change exterior paint colors by the push of a button, and also has the technology to heal the kidney grill if it is injured. Nonetheless, these are legitimate questions. They arise from reasonable fears, and only a naïve technocrat would brush them lightly aside. For if we look around us, we find widespread evidence of psychological breakdown. It is as though a bomb had gone off in out communal “psycho-sphere.” We are, in fact, experiencing not merely the breakup of the Second Wave techno-sphere, info-sphere, or socio-sphere but the crack-up of its psycho-sphere as well. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
Throughout the affluent nations the litany is all too familiar: rising rates of juvenile suicide, dizzying high levels of alcoholism, widespread psychological depression, vandalism, and crime. In the United States of America, emergency rooms are crowded with “potheads,” “speed freaks,” “Quaalude kids,” “coke sniffers,” “heroin junkies,” “fentanyl fires,” “molly malfunctions,” “ecstasy electrocutes,” “lean limps,” and not to mention people having “nervous breakdowns.” Social work and mental healthy industries are booming everywhere. In Washington a President’s Commission on Mental Health announces that fully one fourth of all citizens in the United States of America suffers from some form of severe emotional stress. And a National Institute of Mental Health psychologist, charging that almost no family is free of some form of mental disorder, declares that “psycological turbulence is rampant in an American society that is confused, divided and concerned about its future.” It is true that spongy definitions and unreliable statistics make such sweeping generations suspect, and it is doubly true that earlier societies were such sweeping generations suspect, and it is doubly true that earlier societies were scarcely models of good mental health. Yet something is terribly wrong today. There is a harassed, knife-edge quality to daily life. Nerves are ragged, and—as the scuffles and shootings in subways or on gas queues suggest—tempers are barely under hair-trigger control. Millions of people are terminally fed up. They are, moreover, increasingly hassled by an apparently swelling army of heavy breathers, kooks, flakes, weirdos, and psycho whose antisocial behavior is frequently glamorized by the media. In the West at least, we see a pernicious romanticization of insanity, a glorification of the “cuckoo nest” inmate. Best-sellers proclaim that madness is a myth, and a literary journal springs up in Berkeley decided to the notion that “Madness, Genius, and Sainthood all lie in the same realm, and should be given the same name and prestige.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Meanwhile, millions of individuals search frantically for their own identities or for some magic therapy to re-integrate their personalities, provide instant intimacy or ecstasy, or lead them to “higher” states of consciousness. By the late 2000’s a human potential movement, spreading eastward from California, had spawned some 8,000 different “therapies” consisting of odds and ends of psychoanalysis, Eastern religion, experimentations with pleasures of the flesh, game playing, and old-time revivalism. In the words of one critical survey, “these techniques were neatly packaged and distributed coast to coast under like Mind Dynamic, Arica, and Silva Mind Control. Transcendental Meditation was already being peddled like speed reading; Scientology’s Dianetics had been mass-marketing its own popular therapy since the fifties. At the same time, America’s religious cults got into the swing, fanning out quietly across the country in massive fund-raising and recruitment drives.” More important than the growing human-potential industry is the Christian evangelical movement. Appealing to poorer and less educated segments of the public, making sophistical use of high-powered radio and television, the “born again” movement is ballooning in size. Religious huckster, riding its crest, send their followers scrambling for salvation in a society they picture as decadent and doomed. This wave of malaise had not struck all parts of the technological World with equal force. For this reason, readers in Europe and elsewhere may be tempted to shrug it off as a largely American phenomenon, while in the United States of America itself some still regard it as just another manifestation of California’s fabled flakiness. Neither view could be further from the truth. If psychic distress and disintegration are most strikingly evident in the Untied States of America, and especially in California, it merely reflects the fact that the Fourth Wave has arrived a bit earlier than elsewhere, causing Third Wave social structures to topple sooner and more spectacularly. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
Indeed, a kind of paranoia has settled over many communities, and not just the United States of America. In Rome, Turin, and even in America, terrorists stalk the streets and secretly are employed in many communities. They have become like the old day klan, where many of their members hold jobs in the TV new media, at law firms, in the courthouses, in law enforcement, property management and the supermarket. They are everywhere. In Paris, and even in once peaceful London, muggings and vandalism increase. In Chicago, San Francisco, and Downtown Sacramento, elderly people are afraid to walk the streets after the street lights come on. In New York, schools and subways crackle with violence. And back in California, a magazine offers its readers a supposedly practical guide to “handguns and gun courses, attack-trained dogs, burglar alarm in door and outdoor home surveillance audio and visual, personal-safety devices, self-defense courses and computerized security systems that update homeowners on their mobile devices if fire or other danger is detected.” There is a sick odor in the air. It is the smell of a dying Third Wave civilization. Thank God, I found out Satan is no match for the believer who knows his authority, and position in Jesus Christ! When you are born again, you become the righteousness of God and a joint-heir with Jesus Christ. All that Jesus has is yours. His righteousness is imputed to you. “For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him,” reports 2 Corinthians 5.21. He hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” reports Ephesians 2.6. When you stand before Satan, he does not see you—he sees the authority of Jesus. The Word says you are the righteousness of God, created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God ordained. We have sung those old unbelieving songs so long that we thought it was true. “Jus a weary pilgrim, struggling through this World, I know not today what tomorrow will bring, shadows, sunshine or rain.” #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
Do not just show up for work. Do not just go through the motions. No, be passionately fulfilling your destiny. That is the way we should be. Have some enthusiasm. Choose to be happy; live with excellence and integrity, and put a spring in your step. Put a smile on your face, and let the World know that you are enjoying the life God has given you! If you want to see God’s favor, do everything with your whole heart. Do it with passion and some fire. Not only will you feel better, but that energy will spread, and soon other people will want what you have. Do you want your life to make an impact? You can change the atmosphere of your home or your entire office with a little bit of enthusiasm. You may have to live or work around people who are prone to being pessimistic, who tend to drag you down. However, do not let them throw mud on your shine. Do not their lack of enthusiasm squelch your passion. If you live with a deadbeat spouse, make a decision tht you are going to be happy and enthusiastic anyway. If you work around people who are always negative, try to overcome that negativity by being optimistic, encouraging, and uplifting. Polish your shine more than usual to make sure the glow does not go out. When everybody else is down and defeated, when you are all alone with nobody nearby to encourage you, simply encourage yourself. Your attitude should be: It does not matter what anybody else does or does not do, I am going to live my life with enthusiasm! I am going to stay on fire. I am going to be aglow. I am going to be passionate about seeing my dreams come to pass. Stay full of zeal. Stay passionate about seeing your dreams come to pass. Stay on fire and aglow. Whatever you do, do it with enthusiasm! The Holy Bible says, “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land,” reports Isaiah 1.19. Notice, we have to be more than obedient; we must be willing—willing to do the right thing, willing to live with a good attitude and with enthusiasm. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
God does not want you to drag through life defeated and depressed. No matter what you have been through, no matter whose fault it was, no matter how impossible your situation may look, the good news is that God wants to turn it around and restore everything that has been stolen from you. He wants to restore your marriage, your family, your career. God wants to restore your joy and give you a peace and happiness you have never known before. Most of all, He wants to restore your relationship with Him. God wants you to live a satisfied life. God does not want you simply to feel a little better for a few days. No, God is in the long-term restoration business. He wants you to have a life filled with an abundance of joy, an abundance of happiness. God does not want you simply to survive that marriage. God wants to turn it around and restore you with a strong, healthy, rewarding relationship. God does not want your business to merely make it through the murky economic waters. He wants your business to sail and to excel! When God restores, He always brings you out better, improved, increased, and multiplied. He has a vision of total victory for your life! Hold on to that new, enlarged vision of victory that God has given you. Start expecting things to change in your favor. Dare to boldly declare that you are standing strong against the forces of darkness. You will not settle for a life of mediocrity! Raise your level of expectancy. It is our faith that activates the power of God. Let us quit limiting Him with our small-minded thinking and start believing Him for bigger and better things. You can start to day to live a successful life now. Remember, if you obey God and are willing to trust Him, you will have the best this life has to offer—and more! Animals, referred to by John Muir as our horizontal brothers, have long been recognized as essential to our development and well-being. Throughout history they have played a major role in human thought and culture. They inhabit our myth, fables, proverbs, and stories. There is a profound, inescapable need for animals among all peoples, for while animals have inhabited a World without people, we have never lived without the companionship, example, and practical help of animals. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
Today, because of the wide-spread pollution of air and water, the rapid expansion of cities, and the destruction of wilderness habitat, we are seeing an imminent and irreversible loss of untamed animal life. We can only guess at the future effect on our children of living in a World in which elephants exist only in zoos, the great whales no longer fill the seas with their song, and the remaining forests are silent. The fact that so many of us are increasingly isolated from the presence of animals may contribute to the growing despair we feel. Direct encounter with animals, meeting them eye to eye on their own ground, evokes a sudden wonder and respect. Their vivid life brings us alive to the source that creates and sustains all beings. Without such encounters we risk losing that part of ourselves which most deeply resonates with nature—the heart of compassion. In safety and in Bliss, may all creature be of a blissful heart. If our greatest loss with the animals have been to lose touch with the reality of their existence, our second loss has been to banish them from our minds. We assume they have nothing to teach us about the predicaments of our existence. We no longer know how to listen to the wisdom of the various four-legged, six-legged, finned and winged creatures that share our life on this Earth. We forget they are ancestors as well as kindred. Long before we existed, they worked out the round of life in thousands of variations, as though anticipating the experiments of human cultures. We must remember how to call upon our powers of empathy and compassion. We are asked to awaken to the plight of our animal relatives, to let their beauty and power come alive for us once more. Humanity has long been a pandemic on this Earth, on nature, and on the animals. We are members of a human family and society, but the presence of animal “others” enlarges our perception of the self beyond the city and opens us inward to that ground of being where live the lizard and monkey, the fish and the bear. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
These are our relations. These are, like us, offspring of the great mystery, and necessary parts of a balanced and living whole. Dear Lord in Heaven, thank You, Father, for giving me this amazing, incredible life, and for making it possible to enjoy every part of it, even the tough times. Thank You for being my Future; I know You have good things in store. I will praise You now and forever for all that You have done for me! O Lord, God of our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, keep this forever in the inward thoughts of the heart of Thy people, and direct their heart unto Thee, for Thou being merciful, full of compassion, forgives iniquity and destroyest not; yea, many a time Thou turnest anger away. For Thou, O Lord, art good, and ready to forgive, and abounding in mercy unto all who call upon Thee. Thy righteousness is everlasting and Thy Law is truth. Thou wilt show faithfulness to Jacob and mercy to Abraham, as Thou hast promised unto our fathers from the days of old. Blessed be the Lord who day by day bears our burden. He is the God of Jacob be a stronghold unto us. O Lord of hosts, happy is the man that trusteth in Thee. Save, O Lord; O King, answer us on the day when we call. Blessed be our God hath created us for His glory, and hath separated us from them that go astray by giving us the Torah of truth, thus planting everlasting life in our midst. May He opened our hearts unto His Law, and with love and reverence may we do His will and serve Him with a perfect heart that we may not labour in vain, nor bring forth confusion. May it be Thy will, O Lord, our God and God of our fathers, that we keep Thy statutes in the World to come. May my soul sing Thy praise and not be silent; O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto Thee, forever. Blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee, O Lord, and whose trust Thou art. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord is an everlasting Rock. And they that know Thy name put their trust in Thee; Thou hast not forsaken them that seek Thee. Thou, O Lord, desirest for the sake of Thy righteousness to make the Torah great and glorious. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22
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You Understand that Harsh Night Was Only a Comedy!
We judge ourselves by what we are capable of doing; try not to become a human of success but rather a human of value. There are many reasons celibacy was so population in the 18th century. Youth were sometimes exposed to adults involved in pleasures of the flesh and they did not like seeing that, and these adults when then prey on the youth and try to get them involved. Because of how disgusted they were, a lot of women did not want to marry, but it was not just because of what they were exposed to, but some other things as well. Mother Ann Lee, the founder of American Shakerism, was born in 1736 into misery and degradation of Manchester, England. As a child, she did have the luxury of attending school, and joined the racks of child labour with her job in a textile factory. Against her repeated pleas, her father forced Ann into marriage—and its dread conjugal duties—with blacksmith Abraham Stanley. Sadly, the union produced three babies, who died soon after birth, which was the fate of half Manchester’s children, and this was a true depression. Nothing is more sad than the loss of life. Ann had a fourth child called Elizabeth, who lived for only six years. This left her tormented by grief and guilt. Ann concluded that the root of her personal tragedy, and indeed of all human depravity was pleasures of the flesh. As if it had embers in it, Ann’s shattered psyche inspire her to avoid her own marriage bed. Despite Stanley’s passion for his beautiful, blue-eyed, chestnut-haired wife, he was willing to forgo pleasures of the flesh and accepted her religion and celibacy. With her new found freedom, Anne became a preacher. She was so passionate and enthusiastic that she converted her faither and two brothers. #RandolphHarris 1 of 26
However, Ann’s new found freedom did not last for long. Patriarchal England was hostile to women preachers. Persecution, including imprisonment began. While in a brutal dungeon, Ann had a vision. Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, fornicating, whereupon God flung them out of sight. This was, Ann believed, a divine revelation. Just as the regimen of healthy people is not suitable for the sick, one should not want to govern a corrupt people by means of the same laws that are suited to a good people. Pleasures of the flesh had caused humankind’s alienation from God. We are told that people of true Christians would form the most perfect society imaginable. Celibacy, therefore, was essential for spiritual rebirth. We have based our words about virginity on the fact that it is first of all a charism, a gift received from God and, consequently, a vocation. Virginity must be received as a gift—an offering to God’s majesty, a living sacrifice and imitation of the imitation of the Eucharist of Christ. Ann’s version of the Fall of Man differed radically from the Church’s. God had punished Adam and Eve equally, so their longings for pleasures of the flesh, not Eve’s special wickedness, were at the crux of His fury. Maybe God wanted humans to procreate like the Virgin Mary, spontaneously and without indulging in pleasures of the flesh. Ann wasted no hatred on womankind but spent it all on the great evil, pleasures of the flesh. The Fathers of the Church were not content to observe the commandments, but also offered God gifts. Christ’s commandments have been given to all Christians, and every Christian is obliged to observe them. The most beautiful thing we can do is renew this gift of ourselves. What makes a gift beautiful and precious is its integrity. The object must be new and intact. We must all nothing in ourselves—in thoughts, looks, or actions—to offend His presence or “grieve” the Spirit. #RandolphHarris 2 of 26
It was Ann’s startling message—celibacy, even after marriage—that converted people. Women had their own special reasons to welcome celibacy. With no effective birth control or it not being allowed by the Church, abstinence was a great idea. Many people still enjoyed bearing children, but they also feared what could happen, so some dreaded it. Childbirth could be agonizing and often fatal: morality rates for mothers and newborns were sky-high. Women delivered squatting over filthy birthing stools or straw, and postpartum puerperal fever killed them in droves. Poor nutrition deformed pelvic bones so bad that babies were trapped in misshapen birth canals. Midwives used hooks to extract the babies, often in bloody chunks. Those children who survived into adulthood faced only the same bleak poverty their parents could never escape. Abstinence was a woman’s main defense against these prospects, but husbands, churches, and society would not tolerate it. Mother Ann’s style of celibacy was different. It was a form of devotion, a duty to God, a conscious renunciation of odious carnal indulgence. It bestowed on the believer the moral authority to resist opposition, including irate husbands. Slowly, the number of Shakers grew. The idea that one had a higher self, the conviction that on had a soul, broke in upon their little existence with great revelatory force, and the people felt it emerging into glorious lighter after a dreary journey though a long dark tunnel. The Overself was enthroned. The disciples realized its presence in their inmost feelings. Nothing on their experience, intellectual or emotional, had possessed for the member such satisfying ecstasy, such as paradisical contentment. For the delight of the higher levels of spiritual experience, unlike the delight of passionate Earthly experience, never palls but remains ever fresh and vivid as through encountered for the first time. #RandolphHarris 3 of 26
The World took on the texture of a lovely half-dream. God’s feet treaded air. Blissfully, wondrously, and overwhelmingly the disciple became that which one sought. The delight of these exalted moments and the fragrance of these Heavenly visitations lingered in the Shaker’s memories for years after they themselves had vanished, and the influence on subsequent life and thought was as long and they themselves were short and beautiful. The experienced would slip away, but the memory of its certitude would remain. This all happened deep in the secret places of one’s own heart. As Ann’s fame increased, so did the hatred of civil authorities. They imprisoned her time and again and did little to prevent enraged citizens from chasing, kicking, and stoning her. Ann’s sufferings simply strengthened her faith and honed her theology. Ann saw her marriage to Christ as evidence of her own greatly exalted status as a person entrusted with divine truths and wisdom. Shaker celibacy was not only its own reward but also the precursor of other, tangible offices and honours. Something similar happens in the life of a young man or woman when they really fall in love. While they were “free” and open to various possibilities, any man or woman who passed by might have drawn their attention and “distracted” them, just as a sheep always leaves a scrap of its wool on the thorns of a hedge when it comes too close. However, one true love for someone has taken hold, every other person and in fact the whole World, respectfully steps back and even fades away entirely for a while. Their hearts are not fixed on one person. A kind of catharsis happens: the new relationship does not destroy all others—companions, relatives or friends—but puts each one in its proper place. Something similar happens to the consecrated soul on the day when, moved by the uncreated love which is the Holy Spirit, one chooses Jesus as Lord and Spouse. The heart is no longer “free,” no longer wanders, and is no longer so easily “distracted” this way and that. #RandolphHarris 4 of 26
This is true virginity for the sake of the Kingdom. God grant that we may desire it, even if from a distance, and make our way towards it, albeit haltingly, with the steps of a child. To encourage one to do this and to strengthen one’s willingness to turn away from the lower nature, the higher self alternately reveals and hides itself at intervals. Once the Overself has vouchsafed to one its Grace, one must make oneself increasingly worthy of the gift. The aspirant should regard the glimpse afforded one in the glow of one’s best moments as a working blueprint. One has to make oneself over again according to the mental picture thus placed before one. The purpose is to call one to more serious, more frequent, and sterner efforts, and to arouse one in increased ardours of moral self-improvement. Mother Ann designed Shaker society so that even its physical plant reflected the celibacy at its ideological core. Men and women lived in segregated quarters and were never alone. At religious services, they sat apart. However, Mother Ann was too wise to suppose that forced separation could, by itself, forestall all lapses in conduct. Lust, she knew all too well, was a powerful force: her husband, Abraham, for one, had lusted after he for years. In fact, his unquenchable longing for a carnal relationship was one of the first things she dealt with in America. Somehow, she managed to convince him that she would never relent about pleasures of the flesh, and her grieving husband finally walked out, leaving his wife alone in her splendid celibacy. To that diviner self thus glimpsed, one must henceforth address all one’s prayers; through its remembrance one must seek succor; in its reliance one must perform all one’s endeavours; by its light one must plead for grace. For the Overself to give itself wholly and perpetually to a human is a rare and wonderful event. Most often it gives itself only for a short time. This serves to intensify and enlarge his love and attraction for it, and to provide one with beautiful memories to support and sustain one in faithfulness to the quest in the fatiguing long-drawn years of struggle and darkness. #RandolphHarris 5 of 26
When the Grace has led one sufficiently far, one will be distinctly aware of an inner presence. It will think for one, feel for one, and even act for one. This is the beginning of, and what it means to have, an egoless life. Just as the sun’s rays are reflected on a burnished silver plate, so the Overself’s attributes are faithfully reflected on a purified and egoless mind. For socializing, the Shakers enjoyed thrice-weekly “union meetings” where men and women sat face-to-face, talking or reading or singing. They released their tensions by speaking in tongues: we can only guess what streamy yearnings were dissipated in the babel. No great sexual scandals ever surfaced. Sexual sublimation, orchestrated into daily life, made celibacy joyous for many believers, tolerable for those with aching loins. However, celibacy was not enough: even loyalty between celibate spouses threatened the tightly knit Shaker community. As late as 1810, an Ohio Shaker meeting-house was mobbed by five hundred angry men. It took six bitter years to establish equilibrium in the commune. By then Shaker core had become Americanized. New rituals and traditions replaced the lost ones, and internal harmony developed. And, thanks to Shaker industry and ingenuity, poverty gave way to prosperity and financial security. However, they failed to interest their growing children into staying. The most serious point of dissension was the most fundamental: celibacy, which dictated the Shaker’s architecture, regulations, and way of life. The Shaker’s worst failure was with their children, most of whom rejected the austere religion and lifestyle. At New Lebanon between 1821 and 1864, of 144 boys admitted, some foundlings but most with their parents, 8 died, 10 were “carried away,” 2 were sent away, 22 became Shakers, and 102 left “for the World.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 26
Many suicide notes go undetected or unconfirmed because the only people who could tell us the truth are gone from the World. Many other people who commit suicide, however, an estimated 12 to 33 percent—leave notes that reveal their intentions and psychological state only hours or minutes before they died. “Bill: I am sorry for causing you so much trouble. I really did not want to and if you would have told me at the first time the truth probably both of us would be very happy now. Bill I am sorry but I cannot take the life any more, I do not think there is any goodness in the World. I love you very very much and I want you to be as happy in your life as I wanted to make you. Tell your parents I am very sorry and please if you can do it do not ever let my parents know what happened. Please, do not hate me Bill, I love you. -Mary.” “Dear Jean, Unfortunately this is the only way to make good the frightful wrong I have done you and to wipe out my abject humanity, I love you. -Paul (You understand that hash night was only a comedy.)” Each suicide note is a personal document, unique to the writer and the circumstances. Some are barely a single sentence; others run several pages. People who leave noted clearly wish to send a powerful message to those they leave behind, whether it be “a cry for help, an epitaph, or a last will and testament.” Most suicide notes are addressed to specific individuals. Survivours’ reactions to suicide notes vary. A note can clarify the cause of death, thus saving relatives the ordeal of a legal investigation. Friends and relative may find that it eases their grief to know the person’s reasons for committing suicide. Yet some suicide notes add to the confusion, guilt, or horror that survivours experience, as was the following case. #RandolphHarris 7 of 26
Rather than permit his wife to leave him, twenty-year-old Mr. Jefferson hanged himself in the bathroom, leaving a note on the front door for his wife, saying, “Cathy I love you. You’re right, I am crazy…and thank you for trying to love me. Phil.” Mrs. Jefferson felt and frequently insisted that she “killed Phil.” She attempted suicide herself a week after. Clinical researcher have tried to improve their understanding of suicide by studying differences between genuine and fake suicide notes, the age and gender of note writers, the grammar of notes, the type and frequency of words used, conscious and unconscious contents, handwriting, and emotional, cognitive, and motivational themes. One important finding is that suicide notes vary significantly with age. Younger persons express more hostility toward themselves and site more interpersonal problems in their notes; those between 40 and 49 report being unable to cope with life; those between 50 and 59 tend not to cite a reason for their suicide; and those over 60 are motivated by such problems as illness, pain, disability, and loneliness. Studies of notes have also revealed that the nature of suicide had changed little since the 1940s, except that we are seeing more “suicide by police officers,” which is when people do things to intentionally get killed by a law enforcement officer. Suicide notes written in the 1940s, and the 1950s, are similar in content to modern notes, with one exception: modern notes show less confusion and more limited thinking. A number of studies have also been conducted on writings that are similar to suicide notes. For example, one team of investigators compared poems by nine poets who committed suicide to those written by nine poets who did not commit suicide. #RandolphHarris 8 of 26
The poets who experienced death by suicide used more first-person self-references in their works, such as “I” and “me,” as well as more words associated with death. In addition, the poets who experienced death by suicide used fewer communication terms (such as “talk” and “listen”) in the poems they had written close to the time of their death by suicide, while nonsuicial poets actually increased their use of such words during this same period of time. Thus, it may be that people who are contemplating suicide tend to use language in distinct ways—ways that may eventually help clinicians identify and distinguish a person’s risk for suicide. A suicide note (or similar offering) provides only a partial picture of the writer’s experiences, perceptions, thoughts, and emotions. Moreover, the writers themselves may not be fully aware of their motives; their desperate thinking prevents them from being truly insightful. Suicide notes are not the royal road to an easy understanding of suicidal phenomena, but in combination with other sources they can point clinicians and researchers in the right direction. Research use a strategy to determine who is at risk of death by suicide by studying people who survive their death by suicide attempts. It is estimated that there are 8 to 20 nonfatal suicide attempts for every fatal suicide. However, it may be that people who survive death by suicide differ in important ways from those who do not. Many of them may not really have wanted to die, for example. Nevertheless, suicide researchers have found it useful to study survivours of suicide; and we shall consider those who attempt death by suicide and those who experience death by suicide as more or less alike. To help address the psychological trauma experienced by many fans of celebrities who have recently experienced death by suicide, postvention” approached are often employed, including counseling sessions in schools and special media programs. #RandolphHarris 9 of 26
In the days following the death of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, a candlelight vigil in Seattle was attended by 5,000 people. What triggers death by suicide? Sometimes people are trying to silence a victim or witness, and faking a suicide is a way to cover up a murder. Often times if the family does not press for an investigation, if it looks like death by suicide, that is how it is labeled, even though it may not be. Suicidal acts may be connected to recent events or current conditions in a person’s life. Although such factors may not be the basic motivation for the death by suicide, they can precipitate it. Common triggering factors include stressful events in the recent lives of suicide attempters than in the lives of matched control subjects. In one study, suicide attempters reported twice as many stressful events in the year before their attempts as nonsuicial depressed patients or patients with other kinds of psychological problems. One form of immediate stress seen in cases of suicide is the loss of a loved one through death, divorce, or rejection. Another is the loss of a job. Still another is the stress experienced during pandemics, hurricanes or other natural disasters, even by young children. A suicide attempt may also be precipitated by a series of recent events that have a combined impact, rather than by a single event, as in the following case. Aaliyah’s suicide attempt took place in the context of a very difficult year for the family. Aaliyah’s mother and father separated after 9 years of marriage. Father the father moved out, he visited the family erratically. Four months after he loved out of the house, the mother’s boyfriend moved into the house. The mother planned to divorce her husband and marry her boyfriend, Robert, who had become the major disciplinarian for the children, a fact that Aaliyah intensely resented. Aaliyah also complained of being “left out” in relation to the closeness she had with her mother. #RandolphHarris 10 of 26
Another problem Aaliyah had was that she and her mother looked alike, so people thought Robert was her boyfriend. Also, Aaliyah had experienced two changes in schools in the last two years which left her feeling friendless. In addition, she received a 4.0, but it was totally overshadowed by rumors of a marriage and a new baby sibling. China’s 300,000 annual suicides, 10 times the United States of Americas’ toll, represents 40 percent of all suicides in the World. China is the only country in which female suicides are more common than male suicides, account for more than 50 percent of suicides by women Worldwide. Research finds that fans of heavy metal rock consider suicide more acceptable then do people who are not fans. However, this attitude does not seem to result from the music or the lifestyle it espouses. Rather, heavy metal fans tend to be low in religiosity, and low religiosity relates to greater acceptability of suicide. Those fans who are religious rate suicide just as unacceptable as nonfans do. There is authority in faith-filled words. The authority in the widow’s words changed the unjust man’s decision. Though he would not do it for a while, her words—the authority in those words—troubled him, and he finally gave in. Many have thought Jesus Christ was teaching us to keep pestering God until we finally wear him down. This could never be representative of God. This was an unjust judge, who had all the qualities of Satan. The authority in the window’s voice changed the decision of the unjust judge. Her words changed his mind. Jesus said, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life,” reports John 6.63. The words that Jesus Christ spoke are not just printed pages. They are spirit life. When you get them on the side of you, they will transform your spirit. They will cause you to speak words of faith, driving out defeat and bring victory. #RandolphHarris 11 of 26
Jesus said, “Hear what the unjust judge saith.” People try to relate the unjust judge to God, but how can you compare an unjust judge to God? Rome perished in the same way, and the excessive power of the tribunes, which they had gradually usurped, finally served, with the help of the laws that were made to protect liberty, as a safeguard, with the help of the laws that were made to protect liberty, as a safeguard for the emperors who destroyed it. As for the Council of Ten in Venice, it is a tribunal of blood, equally horrible to the patricians and the people, and which, far from proudly protecting the laws, no longer serves any purpose, after their degradation, beyond that of delivering blows in the dark which no one dares notice. If we do that, we have missed the whole point of what Jesus was teaching. Let us rightly divine the Word of Truth: “Though I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, least by her continual coming she weary me.” In other words, “That woman meant what she said. I know by the tone of her voice, she will be back.” The unjust judge is only troubled. He is not weary yet. However, her continual coming would cause him to be weary. Since he is not weary yet, evidently she had not been coming. She only came once. He said, “I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.” The unjust judge granted her request so she would not come back. The Lord said, “Shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry day and night unto Him, though he bear long with them? He is not saying they were crying day and night over the same thing; yet we have read that into it. We have had the same idea here as in the first verse when Jesus said, “Men ought always to pray, and not faint.” In other words, “You have a need this morning, pray about it. If it is not manifest and you have another need tonight, do not sit around wringing your hands saying, ‘Since God did not answer my first prayer, He will not answer this one.’” #RandolphHarris 12 of 26
God has to bear long with us at times. However, that is because we are not in line with the Word of God and we try to do it our way. There have been times when I have prayed about everything and just thrown out a scatter load, hoping to God some of it would work. Once in a while, some of it would and I would be surprised. That is what you call a “faith accident.” You finally come across something that you believe, and it happens. Jesus said, “I tell you that He (God) will avenge them speedily.” The unjust judge did not avenge speedily, but Jesus said that God would avenge us speedily. “Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on Earth?” Will He find the kind of faith this woman possessed? Even though she was so insignificant in the eyes of the public, she went to the unjust judge—a man who feared neither God nor man—and her request was granted. Will the Son of man find that kind of faith when He comes back? “There was a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man.” As we have noted, he would qualify for the devil. It certainly could not be God. The unjust judge is representative of the evil one or Satan. The widow represents that individual believer. Jesus is showing us the power of speaking boldly. Without Christ, we can not do nothing; but, praise God, we are not without Him! Jesus said, “Hear what the unjust judge saith.” Now when Jesus says hear something, He means to pay special attention to it. Hear what Satan will say when a believer comes to him and demands boldly, “Avenge me of my adversary.” As believers today we would say, “I demand my rights in Jesus’ name.” This little woman was coming in the authority of her faith and not by sight. The unjust judge is representative of Satan who is subject to the authority of faith-filled words. When the Son of man returns, will He find this kind of faith on Earth—that a believer would dare to stand before the unjust one and tell him what to do? #RandolphHarris 13 of 26
This not only portrays the individual believer using his authority, but also the Church using the name of Jesus. Isaiah 54.4-5, says she shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name. Ephesians 3.9-10, outlines the role of Church is to play: “And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the World hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in Heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.” What principalities and powers is he talking about? The same principalities and powers mentioned in Ephesians 6.12, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this World, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” He is saying, “For we wrestle…against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this World, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” He is talking about the devil, his angels, and all his evil forces. To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers might be known by the church manifold wisdom of God. The Church is going to reveal the manifold wisdom of God, showing that God was in Christ reconciling the World to Himself, declaring His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past and bestowing on us His righteousness. The Church can come forth wearing the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salvation, having our loins grit with the Truth and our feet sod with the gospel of peace, with the shield of faith in our hands and the Sword of the Spirit in our mouths. We can come boldly before the unjust judge and say, “In the name of Jesus, get your hand off me, off my finances, off of God’s property! I am redeemed from the curse and delivered from the powers of darkness!” #RandolphHarris 14 of 26
Experience teaches us every day the causes that lead to the revolutions of empires. However, since peoples are no longer being formed, we have almost nothing but conjecture to explain how they were formed. The majority vote in each tribe determined the tribe’s vote; the majority vote of the tribes determined the people’s vote; and the same went for the curia and the centuries. This custom was good so long as honesty reigned among the citizens and each was ashamed to give one’s vote publicly in favour of an unjust proposal or an unworthy subject. However, when the people became corrupt and votes were bought, it was fitting that they should give their votes in secret in order to restrain the buyers through distrust and to provide scoundrels the means of not being traitors. Only the greatest dangers can counterbalance the danger of altering the public order, and the sacred power of the laws should never be suspended except when it is a question of the safety of the homeland. In these rare and obvious cases, public safety can be provided for by a special act which confers the responsibility for it on someone who is most worthy. Hence this the judgment whose regulation is the point at issue. Whoever judges more judges honour; and whoever judges honour derives one’s law from opinion. The opinions of a people arise from its constitution. Although the law does not regulate mores, legislation is what gives rise to them. When legislation weakens, mores degenerate; but then the judgment of the censors will not do what the force of the laws has not down. It follows from this that the censorship can be useful for preserving mores, but never for reestablishing them. Establish censors while the laws are vigorous. Once they have lost their vigour, everything is hopeless. Nothing legitimate has any force once the laws no longer have force. The censorship maintains mores by preventing opinions from becoming corrupt, by preserving their rectitude through wise applications, and sometimes even by making a determination on them when they are still uncertain. #RandolphHarris 15 of 26
What is honour for the one, what is shame for the other; and without having given praise of blame to either of the two! By the mere fact that a god was placed at the head of every political society, it followed that there were as many gods as there were peoples. Two peoples who were alien to one another and nearly always enemies could not recognize the same master for very long. Two armies in combat with one another could not obey the same leader. Thus national divisions led to polytheism, and this in turn led to theological and civil intolerance which are by nature the same. However, if asked how in pagan cultures, where each state has its own cult and its own gods, there are no wars of religion, it was for this very reason that each state, having its own cult as well as its own government, did not distinguish its gods from its laws. Political war was theological as well. The departments of the gods were, so to speak, fixed by national boundaries. The gods of one people had no rights over other peoples. The gods of the pagans were not jealous gods. They divided dominion over the Word among themselves. Moses himself and the Hebrew people sometimes countenanced this idea in speaking of the god of Israel. It is true they regarded as nothing the gods of the Canaanites, a proscribed people destined for destruction, and whose land they were to occupy. However, note how they spoke of the divinities of neighbouring peoples whom they were forbidden to attack! Is not the possession of what belongs to you god Chamos, said Jephthah to the Ammonites, lawfully yours? By the same right we possess the lands our victorious god has acquired for himself? It appears to me that here was a clear recognition of the parity between the rights of Chamos and those of the god of Israel. #RandolphHarris 16 of 26
The Romans having spread their cult and their gods, along with their empire, and having themselves often adopted the gods of the vanquished by granting the right of the city to both alike, the peoples of this vast empire gradually found themselves to have multitudes of gods and cults, which were nearly the same everywhere. And that is how paganism finally became a single, identical religion in the known World. Such were the circumstances under which Jesus came to establish a spiritual kingdom on Earth. In separating the theological system from the political system, this made the state to cease being united and caused internal division that never ceased to agitate Christian peoples. However, since this new idea of an otherworldly kingdom had never entered the heads of the pagans, they always regarded the Christians as true rebels who, underneath their hypocritical submission, were only waiting for the moment when they would become independent and the masters, and adroitly usurp the authority they pretended in their weakness to respect. This is the reason for the persecutions. What the pagans feared happened. Then everything changes its appearance. The humble Christians changed their language, and soon this so-called otherworldly kingdom became, under a visible leader, the most violent despotism in this World. However, since there has always been a prince and civil laws, this double power have given rise to a perpetual jurisdictional conflict that has made all good polity impossible in Christian states, and no one has ever been able to know whether it is the priest or the master whom one is obliged to obey. Nevertheless, several peoples, even in Europe or nearby have wanted to preserve or reestablish the ancient system, but without success. The spirit of Christianity has won everything. The sacred cult has always remained or again become independent of the sovereign and without any necessary link to the state. #RandolphHarris 17 of 26
Christianity is a completely spiritual religion, concerned exclusively with things Heavenly. The homeland of the Christian is not of this World. One does one’s duty, it is true, but one does it with a profound indifference toward the success or failure of one’s efforts. So long as one has nothing to reproach oneself for, it matters little to one whether anything is going well or poorly down here. If the state is flourishing, one hardly dares to enjoy public felicity, for fear of becoming puffed up with one’s country’s glory. If the state is in decline, one blessed the hand of God that weighs heavily on one’s people. For the society to be peaceful and for harmony to be maintained, every citizen without exception would have to be an equally good Christian. However, if, unhappily, there is a single ambition human, a single hypocrite, a Cataline, for example, or a Cromwell, one would quite undoubtedly gain the upper hand on one’s pious compatriots. Christian charity does not readily allow one to think ill of one’s neighbours. Once one has discovered by some ruse the art of deceiving them and of laying hold of a part of the public authority, behold a human established in dignity! God will that He be respected. Soon, behold a power! God wills that he be obeyed. Does the trustee of His power abuse it? He is the rod with which God punishes his children. It would be against one’s conscience to expel the usurper. It would be necessary to disturb the public tranquility, use violence and shed blood. All this accords ill with the meekness of a Christian. And after all, what difference does it make weather one is a free human or a surf in this value of tears? The essential thing is getting to Heaven, and reignation is but another means to that end. What is a foreign war breaks out? The citizens march without reservation into combat; none among them dread of deserting. #RandolphHarris 18 of 26
Christians do their duty, but without passion for victory; they know how to die better than how to be victorious. What difference does it make whether they are the victors of the vanquished? Does not providence know better than they what they need? Just imagine the advantage a fierce, impetuous and passionate enemy could draw from their stoicism! Set them face to face with those generous peoples who were devoured by an ardent love of glory and homeland. Suppose your Christian republic is face to face with Sparta or Rome. The pious Christians will be beaten, crushed and destroyed before they realize where they are, or else they will owe their safety only to the scorn their enemies will conceive for them. To my way of thinking, the oath taken by Fabius’ soldiers was a fine one. They did not swear to die or to win; they swore to return victorious. And they kept their promise. Christians would never have taken such an oath; they would have believed they were tempting God. However, I am deceiving myself in talking about a Christian republic; these terms are mutually exclusive. Christianity preaches only servitude and dependence. Its spirit is too favourable to tyranny for tyranny not to take advantage of it at all times. True Christians are made to be slaves. They know it and are hardly moved by this. This brief life has too little value in their eyes. Christian troops, we are told, are excellent. Crusades were soldiers of the priest; they were citizens of the church; they were fighting for its spiritual country which the church, God knows how, had made temporal. Properly understood, this is a throwback to paganism. Since the Gospel does not establish a national religion, no holy war is possible among Christians. Under the pagan emperors, Christian soldiers were brave. All the Christian authors affirm this, and I believe it. This was a competition for honour against the pagan troops. #RandolphHarris 19 of 26
Once the emperors were Christians, this competition ceased. And when the cross expelled the eagle, all Roman valour disappeared. The doctrines and covenants of the civil religion ought to be simple, few in number, precisely worded, without explanations or commentaries. The existence of a powerful, intelligent, beneficent divinity that foresees and provides; the life to come; the happiness of the just; the punishment of the wicked; the sanctity of the social contact and of the laws. These are beneficial doctrines and covenants. As for the negative doctrines and covenants, I am limiting them to just one, namely intolerance. It is part of the cults we have excluded. Those who distinguish between civil and theological intolerance are mistaken, in my opinion. Those two types of intolerance are inseparable. It is impossible to live in peace with those one believes to be damned. To love them would be to hate God who punishes them. It is absolutely necessary either to reclaim them or torment them. Whatever theological intolerance is allowed, it is impossible for it not to have some civil effect; and once it does, the sovereign no longer is sovereign, not even over temporal affairs. Thenceforward, priests are the true masters; kings are simply their officers. Now that there are no longer is and never again can be an exclusive national religion, tolerance should be shown to all those that tolerate others, so long as their doctrine and covenants contain nothing contrary to the duties of a citizen. However, whoever dares stay outside the church there is no salvation ought to be expelled from the state, unless the state is the church and the prince is the pontiff. Such a doctrine and convent is good only in a theocratic government; in all other forms of government it is ruinous. The reason why Henry IV is said to have embraced the Roman religion should make every decent man, and above all any prince who knows how to reason, leave it. #RandolphHarris 20 of 26
I should always set my sights on things that are nearer at hand to me. The Fourth Wave society, unlike its predecessor, must (and will) draw on an amazing variety of energy sources—hydrogen, solar, geothermal, tidal, biomass, lightning discharges, ultimately perhaps advanced fusion power, as well as other courses not yet imagined in 2022. Fourth wave civilization will rely on a far more diversified technological base as well, springing from biology, genetics, electronics, materials science, as well as on outer space and under-the-sea operations. While some new technologies will require high energy inputs, much Fourth Wave technology will be designed to use less, not more, energy. Nor will these new technologies be as massive and ecologically dangerous as those of the past. Look how much smaller computers, hot water heaters, heaters, and many other things have become and how efficient LED lights are, and how long they last. Many of our new technologies will continue to be small in scale, simple to operate, with the waste of one industry predesigned for recycling into primary materials for another. For Fourth Wave civilization, the most basic raw material of all—and one that can never be exhausted—is information, including imagination. Through imagination and information, substitutes will be found for many of today’s exhaustible resources—although this substitution, once more, will all too frequently be accompanied by drastic economic swings and lurches. With information becoming more important than ever before, the new civilization will restructure education, redefine scientific research and, above all, reorganize the media of communication. Today’s mass media, both print and electronic, are wholly inadequate to cope with the communications load and to provide the requisite cultural variety for survival. Instead of being culturally dominated by a few mass media, Fourth Wave civilization will rest om interactive, de-massified media, feeding extremely diverse and often highly personalized imagery into and out of the mind-stream of the society. #RandolphHarris 21 of 26
Television has already given way to “indi-video”—narrow-casting by the Internet of thousands of shows that have never aired on television, images addressed to a single individual at a time. We may also eventually use medication, direct brain-to-brain communication, and other forms of electrochemical communication only vaguely hinted at until now. All of which will raise startling, though not insoluble, political and moral problems. The fusion of Fourth Wave energy forms, technologies, and information media will speed revolutionary changes in the way we work. Factories are still being built (and in some parts of the World they will continue to be built for decades to come), but Fourth Wave factory already bears little resemblance to those we have known until now, and—in the rich nations—the number of people in factor jobs will continue to plummet. The factory will no longer serve as a model for other types of institutions. Nor will its primary function be that of mass production. Even now the Fourth Wave factor produces de-massified—often customized—end products. It relies on advanced methos such as wholistic or “presto” production. It will ultimately use less energy, waste less raw material, employ fewer components, and demand far more design intelligence. Most significantly, many of its machines will be directly activated not by workers but as a distance, by consumers themselves. Those who do work in Fourth Wave factories will perform far less brutalizing or repetitive work than those still trapped in traditional jobs. They will not be paced by mechanical conveyor belts. Noise levels will be low. Workers will come and go at hours convenient for them. The actual workplace will be far more humane and individualized, often with flowers and greenery sharing the space with machines. Within fixed limits, payment and fringe benefit packages will be increasingly tailored to individual preference. #RandolphHarris 22 of 26
As we are seeing, many jobs will shift of work from both office and factory back into the home and remain there. However, not all jobs can, will, or should be caried out in people’s homes. Some doctors and dentists may even buy mansions and work out of their homes like in the Victorian days. As low-cost communications are substituted for high-cost transportation, as we increase the role of intelligence and imagination in production, further reducing the role of brute force or routine mental labour, a significant slice of the work in Fourth Wave societies will perform at least part of its work at home, factories remaining only for those who must actually handle physical materials. With information increasing in importance, universities will replace the factory as the central institution. Multinational executives, for their part, see the executive suite as the pivot of today. The new profession of “information manager” pictures their computer rooms as the center of the new civilization. Scientists look to the industrial research laboratory. A few remaining hipsters dream of restoring the agricultural commune to the center of a neo-medieval future. Others may nominate the “gratification chambers” of a leisure-drenched society. Yet, it is unlikely that any institution—not even the home—will play as central a role as the cathedral or the factory did in the past. For the society is likely to be built around a network rather than a hierarchy of new institutions. Corporations will stop towering over other social institutions and will be recognized as complex organizations that pursue multiple goals simultaneously—not just profit or production quotes. These managers will watch over (and be held personally responsible for) multiple “bottom lines.” #RandolphHarris 23 of 26
Executive paychecks and bonuses will gradually come to reflect this new multi-functionality, as the corporation, either through voluntary means or because it is compelled to, becomes more responsive to what today are regarded as non-economic and hence largely irrelevant factors—ecological, political, social, cultural, and moral. This society will also be built on segmentation and diversity. Instead of a society that concentrates population, energy flows, and other features of life Fourth Wave Society will understand the meaning of “appropriate scale.” Many new organizations will do away with the old insistence on one person is the boss—all of which suggests a work World in which more people share temporary decisional power. Vast increases in white-collar and service work will be absorbed who had been previously laid off by the shrinking manufacturing sector. The sufferings that World War II brought to so many have deeply shocked us but the significance of those sufferings must also be examined from a fresh standpoint. In all theories offered to a bewildered World concerning it own woes, there is much anxiety and alarm at the symptoms but little search for the causes. If people accept a deceptive World-view as the Germans did and as the Russian do, or a defective one as so many others did and do, they must also accept the troubles and disaster which go with it. We must push the spade of enquiry deep down into the Earth that surrounds the roots of this problem of wars and riots, aggression and crimes, rather than be content with a mere surface view. The evils that menace our existence will then be found to grow out of two roots: ignorant egoism and unchecked emotion. The one is unnecessary, the others unreasonable. Each of the World Wars which afflicted humankind was the inevitable self-earned effect of causes previously set going. The unerring law of Karma brings whatever good or evil recompense is deserved. The debit account of wrong done is allowed to run on until the end of the page and then it has to be totalled and the balance entered to adjust the total. #RandolphHarris 24 of 26
The great famines, like the great wars, which afflicted and still afflict humankind, constitute part of this adjustment, part of the payment which humankind is forced to make by the higher governing law of karma. Their causes are as plural as the causes of the wars, although on the deepest level there is only the same single cause of human ignorance leading to human wrong-doing. One of them is the refusal of humankind to utilize the Earth’s grain harvests for its own direct use, diverting them instead to the use of animals deliberately bred for slaughter and then eating the grain indirectly in the form of those animals’ corpses. Such a way of supporting life is both utterly unnecessary and utterly cruel. The life of innocent creatures cannot be taken upon such baseless grounds with impunity. Retribution has hit humankind again and again in the past, with the weapons of hunger, disease, and war, and it is hitting them again in the present. If it does not face the real challenge and meet it, no reorganization of agricultural methods on more efficient and more productive lines, no re-arrangement of trading relations, no governmental subsidies in cash, tractors, seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, or equipment will save humankind from suffering famines and enduring starvation. A radical change of life is demanded from humanity, a repentant change of heart is the only way to win back Nature’s smile. It must stop this unjustified murder of helpless living beings, murdered merely because they are considered to be less important on the scale of evolution. It must accept the perfectly sufficient diet of grains, cereals, vegetables, pulses, fruits, nuts, and dairy produce which will enable it to live with less suffering and more healthy, less punishment and more conscience, than other diets permit. All praise be yours through Brother Sun. All praise be your through Sister Moon. By Mother Earth, the Spirit be Praised. #RandolphHarris 25 of 26
By Brother Mountain, Sister Sea, through Brother Wind and Brother Air, through Sister Water, Brother Fire, the Stars above give thank to Thee, all praise to those who live in Peace. All praise be yours, through Brother World. All praise be yours, through Sister Whale. By nature’s song, the spirit be praised. By Brother Eagle, Sister Loon, though Brother Tiger, Sister Seal, let creatures all give thanks to Thee. All praise to those who live in peace. Ask of the beasts and they shall teach you the beauty of the Earth. Ask of the Trees and they shall teach you the beauty of the Earth. Ask of the Flowers and they shall teach you the beauty of the Earth. Ask of the Wind and it shall teach you the beauty of the Earth. A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you. You shall behold only with your eyes, and see the recompense of the wicked. Because you have made the Lord your fortress, and the Most High your refuge, no evil shall befall you, neither shall any plague come near your tent. For He will give His Angels charge over you, to guard you in all your ways. They shall bear you upon their hands, lest your strike your foot against a stone. You shall tread upon the lion and asp, you shall trample on the young lion and serpent. Because he has set his love upon Me, I will deliver him, I will protect him because he has known my name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and bring him to honour. I will give him abundance of long life, and he shall witness My salvation. Thou art holy, O Thou that art enthroned upon the praises of America. And one called to another and said: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole Earth is full of His glory. [And they receive sanction one from the other, and say: Holy in the highest Heavens, the place of His abode; Holy upon Earth, the work of His might power, Holy forever and to all eternity is the Lord of hosts; the whole Earth is full of the radiance of His glory.] #RandolphHarris 26 of 26
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The Spirits of Darkness Seem to Meddle a Good Deal More than is Necessary for them!
When a person becomes a Christian and lives in fellowships with God, one does not have to dodge the sobering realities of life and death. One can reflect upon the future without becoming depressed or fearful. One can talk about death, either one’s own or that of a loved one, without being engulfed by morbid feelings. One can face the possibility of nuclear war and Worldwide destruction without despairing. Why? Because one believes in an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving God. One is assured that Jesus Christ paid the price for one’s sin on Calvary, and is confident that the power of death has been destroyed by Christ’s resurrection. Believing that a glorious eternity awaits one in Heaven, one is not afraid to die. For these reasons, one does not need a fortuneteller to analyze cards, read one’s palm, or gaze into a crystal ball. Nor does one have to consult the horoscope for information and advice. One places no confidence in the visions of self-styled prophets. Instead, one reads the Christian Bible to find God’s message of instruction and comfort, and through prayer one receives the strength and grace of needs day by day. Most people, either through ignorance or determined unbelief, have never placed their trust in Christ. In fact, multitudes have more or less ruled out the idea of God from their thinking, and therefore possess no real hope for the future. This attitude of unbelief may suffice for some people part of the time, but the uncertainties, problems, disappointments, and sorrows of life are so great that many must look somewhere beyond themselves for help. A large percentage of such people in recent years have turned to occultism, and claim to have found a measure of satisfaction in it. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17
An ever-increasing number of people are visiting mediums to make contact with the spirits of loved ones who have died. When someone talks about “the gift of prophecy,” the public today is not surprised. Even among those who have had little or no contact with the Christian Bible are many who maintain that certain people are able to foretell the future. This is an amazing and paradoxical phenomenon of our scientific age. True, self-styled prophets and fortunetellers have appeared in every generation, but usually little attention has been paid them by most people. Today, however, millions of intelligent and well-educated members of our affluent society are spending vast sums of money for books, magazine, pod cast, private consultations to gain information about the future. A person who has only a superficial knowledge of what the Bible teaches may be inclined to think that anyone who claims to have the gift of prophecy and speaks well of God and Christ is to be considered genuine and trustworthy. Nothing could be farther from the truth! An individual may live an outwardly respectable life, teach a noble system of ethic, and speak of Jesus Christ in a highly complimentary manner, but still be a servant of the forces of evil. Remember, Paul warned believers, if necessary, that the devil is so clever he will make himself and his followers appears as “angels of the light,” to deceive people who are not well-grounded in faith. “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing is his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works,” reports 2 Corinthians 11.13-15. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17
Believers must carefully examine the life and doctrine of any person who claims the gift of prophecy, and use Scriptural principles to make an accurate evaluation. Let us turn the searchlight on Mrs. Dixon, perhaps one of the best-known fortunetellers. She was reported to be a very religious person who advocated and lived a highly moral life. She had recorded a number of her alleged visions, consults an old deck of cards given her Rom lady, gazes into a crystal ball, writes horoscopes, and has made numerous specific prophecies. She gained her reputation as a prophetess because of an unusual number of accurate predictions. She foretold the death of President Franklin Roosevelt, and predicted Harry Truman’s election defeat of Thomas Dewy. She also stated that the communist would obtain control of China long before the takeover actually occurred, and foresaw the coming to power of Nikita Khrushchev, his removal from office, and the orbiting of Sputnik. In addition, she warned that an assassination attempted would be made upon President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. Strangely enough, she even gave advice to men who bet on horse races and predicted the success or failure of certain business enterprises. Some astute gamblers and businessmen claimed her predictive “batting average” was so high they considered her a genuine mystic. However, does this mean she was really endowed with the “gift of prophecy” of which the Bible speaks? We say, “No!” In the first place, she was not batting a thousand, which is required if one is to be considered a genuine prophet of God. The Almighty never makes mistakes. In the Old Testament He told that Israelites that they were to test the validity of a person’s claim to be a prophet by the accuracy of one’s predictions. No one was to be considered God’s spokesman unless what one said concerning the never future actually came to pass in every detail. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17
As you read the Old Testament, you will notice that the prophets never spoke only of events far in the future. They always preached a message relevant to their own day, and included prophecies of things which would soon take place. If these predictions were not fulfilled in every respect, the spokesman was not to be accepted as a prophet of God. “And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously; thou shalt not be afraid of him,” reports Deuteronomy 18.21-22. Mrs. Dixon had not maintained a perfect “batting average.” She may be hitting a little better than .500, but this is not high enough. For example, she prophesied peace in Vietnam as far back as 1965, said that Richard Nixon would defeat John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election, and declared that Walter Reuther would run for the presidency in 1964. No other present-day fortuneteller does any better. Therefore, not one of them is qualified to be considered as an inspired prophet of God. In addition, any person who dabbles in occult activity forfeits the right to be God’s spokesman. That the Lord strongly forbade such practices cannot be questioned. Listened to the words of Isaiah: “Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from where it riseth, and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off, and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know. Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, in which thou hast laboured from thy youth, if so be thou mayest prevail. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17
“Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. Behold, they shall be like stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame; there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it. Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured, even thy merchants, from thy youth; they shall wander every one to one’s quarter; none shall save thee,” reports Isaiah 47.11-15. Anyone who disobeys these clear prohibitions cannot be a prophet for God. Another reason to avoid present-day fortunetellers is that their visions and messages often do not square with the teachings of the Christian Bible. Their unbiblical statements are serious, for they claim to speak by direct communication from God. The Bible teacher who makes errors in one’s interpretation of certain Scriptures can admit one’s blunders without embarrassment because one does not claim infallibility. A prophet, however, should never err, for the very nature of one’s message as coming directly from the Lord would implicate the Almighty, not the human instrument. Since Mrs. Dixon is regarded as a prophet, not a Biblical student, her errors are of a different nature than the ones preachers sometimes make. And she does blunder occasionally. For example, in her description of her first vision, which allegedly took place on July 14, 1952, she said that a huge serpent approached her bed and slowly entwined itself around her body. As she looked into the eyes of this creature, she saw that they were full of love, goodness, and knowledge, and a deep sense of peace flowed through her. Anyone well-versed in the Scriptures cannot help but be puzzled by this strange interpretation of the serpent’s significance. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17
Mrs. Dixon made it represent goodness, knowledge, peace, and love, but this is in direct contradiction to the consistent Biblical symbolism of the serpent. All through the Bible it is associated with Satan and sin. The instructed Bible student also raises serious questions when one studies Mrs. Dixon’s interpretation of a vision she claims to have received on February 5, 1962. This happened to be a day when an unusual conjunction of the planets occurred, and astrologers were unanimous in declaring that a significant event would take place on this date. Mrs. Dixon reports that the lights in her house began to flicker, first dimming and then burning brightly. She went to bed, and awakened before sunrise. She looked out her window toward the east, and in vision saw an Egyptian pharaoh with his queen Nefertiti walking toward her on the rays of the sun. Both the kind and queen were gorgeously attired in royal apparel, but the wife was holding in her arms an infant dressed in rages. Mrs. Dixon said that when she looked into the eyes of the baby, she saw that they were full of wisdom. Then, as she continued to gaze at the scene, she saw the baby grow into manhood, and, to her amazement, a small cross which was suspended over his head became larger and larger until it stretched over the entire Earth. Soon people from every part of the World knelt before this man in adoring worship. This so-called vision, considered by itself, could be quite naturally explained. It contained elements Mrs. Dixon could have drawn easily from reading the Bible and other books on ancient history, and one might believe that she was actually asleep and dreaming instead of awake and beholding a vision. The astonishing element in the whole story is the fact that Mrs. Dixon has set forth two conflicting interpretations of what the vision meant. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17
In her first report she said that the baby who became a man and was worshipped represented the great leader of a new Christianity, and predicted that he would unite the people of every sect and creed in the service of God. She declared that a baby, born somewhere in the Middle East shortly after 7 A.M. E.S.T. on 5 February 1962, is the World’s great hope. He will be the founder of this new and perfect form of the Christian faith. Her explanation of the meaning of this vision was a surprise to devout Bible scholars. Anyone who is familiar with the prophetic Scriptures knows that the Bible does not predict the coming of a second Christ to perfect the Christian faith. In fact, it declares unequivocally that a great enemy of the Lord Jesus will make his appearance, and that he is the Antichrist. The apostle John declared, “Little children, it is the las time; and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists, by which we know it is the last time,” reports 1 John 2.18. Every enemy of Christ (antichristos) and every self-styled christ (pseudo christos) who have crossed the threshold of history are forerunners in miniature of one exceedingly powerful and indescribable wicked man who will be “the Anti-Christ.” In the book of Revelation, the beloved apostle portrays a seven-headed beast who rises from the sea and swiftly becomes the World dictator. His coming up out of the water symbolizes that his rise to power will take place in the midst of turbulent conditions among the nations, and the fact that he is closely related to the dragon (Satan) reveals immediately his true character. He is a blasphemer, World ruler, and along with Satan becomes the object of human worship. In fact, he demands that people revere him as God, and instigates bitter persecution against those who refuse to bow down to him. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17
Here are the words of John: “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns tend crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like the fear of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion; and the dragon gave him his power, and his throne, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as though it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed, and all the World wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon who gave power unto the beast; and they worshiped the beast says, Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and power was given unto him to continue forty-two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in Heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with saints, and to overcome them; and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the Earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of the life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the World. If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity; he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints,” reports Revelation 13.1-10. This same enemy of Christ is presented in the Old Testament Scriptures. Daniel refers to hm as the willful king who rises to power, blasphemes the Almighty, and magnifies him as God. (See Daniel 11.36-45.) The apostle Paul spoke of him in 2 Thessalonians, referring to him as the man of sin, the son of perdition, that wicked one, and “him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all the power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved,” reports 2 Thessalians 2.1-12. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17
In the light of these Scriptures, it seems that the baby of Mrs. Dixon’s alleged vision should represent the Antichrist rather than the founder of the “new Christianity.” Apparently Jeane Dixon had second thoughts too, for she changed her mind. However, if Mrs. Dixon was communicating with demons, then the birth of evil and him having influence over Christianity would be a good thing. That is the tricky thing about communicating with spirits. Why did she change her mind? Did she restudy the Bible? Or was she influenced by the literature of some scholar? At any rate, on page 203 of her second book, entitled My Life and Prophecies (1969) she wrote, “There is no doubt in my mind that the ‘child’ is the actual person of the Antichrist, the one who will deceive the World in Satan’s name.” She also reversed her earlier interpretation about the serpent she saw in her first vision, now concluding it was a symbol of Satan. We are not passing judgement upon Mrs. Dixon’s honesty or sincerity, but we wonder why she did not admit that she did not receive her visions from God. The Lord would not lead His servants to make mistakes of this nature and then later to issues a complete reversal. God’s inspired prophets would not have made such errors. Nonetheless, a most remarkable instance of legal proceedings being instituted at the instigation of a ghost comes from the Co. Down in the year 1662. About Michaelmas one Francis Taverner, servant to Lord Chichester, was riding home on horseback late one night from Hillborough, and on nearing Drumbridge his horse suddenly stood still, and he, not suspecting anything out of the common, but merely supposing him to have the staggers, got down to bleed him in the mouth, and then remounted. As he was proceeding two horsemen seemed to pass him, though he heard no sound of horses’ hoofs. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17
Presently there appeared a third at his elbow, apparently clad in a long white coast, having the appearance of one James Haddock, an inhabitant of Malone who had died about five years previously. When the startled Taverner asked him in God’s name who he was, he told him that he was James Haddock, and recalled himself to his mind by relating a trifling incident that had occurred in Taverner’s father’s house a short while before with Haddock’s death. Taverner asked him why he spoke with him; he told him, because he was a man of more resolution than other men, and requested him to ride along with him in order that he might acquaint him with the business he desired him to perform. Taverner refused, and, as they were at a cross-road, went his own way. Immediately after parting with the spectre there arose a mighty wind, “and withal he heard very hideous Screeches and Noises, to his great amazement. At last he heard the cocks crow, to his great comfort; he alighted off his horse, and falling to prayer desired God’s assistance, and so got safe home.” The following night the ghost appeared again to him as he sat by the fire, and thereupon declared to him the reason for its appearance, and the errand upon which it wished to send him. It bade him to go to Eleanor Walsh, its widow, who was now married to one David, and say to her that it was the will of her late husband that their son David should be righted in the matter of a lease which the father had bequeathed to him, but of which the step-father had unjustly deprived him. Taverner refused to do so, partly because he did not desire to gain the ill-will of his neighbours, and partly because he feared being taken for one demented; but the ghost so thoroughly frightened him by appearing to him every night for a month, that in the end he promised to fulfill its wishes. He want to Malone, found a woman named Eleanor Walsh, who proved to be the wrong person, but who told him she had a namesake living hard by, upon which Taverner took no further trouble in the matter, and returned without delivering his message. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17
The same night he was awakened by something pressing upon him, and saw again the ghost of Haddock in a white coast, which asked him if he had delivered the message, to which Taverner mendaciously replied that he had been to Malone and had seen Eleanor Walsh. Upon which the ghost looked with a more friendly air upon him, bidding him not to be afraid, and then vanished in a flash of brightness. But having learnt the truth of the matter in some mysterious way, it again appeared, this time in a great fury, and threatened to tear him to pieces if he did not do as it desired. Utterly unnerved by these unearthly visits, Taverner left his house in the mountains and went into the town of Belfast, where he sat up all night in the house of a shoemaker named Peirce, where were also two or three of Lord Chichester’s servants.” About midnight, as they were all by the fireside, they beheld Taverner’s countenance change and a trembling to fall upon him; who presently espied the Apparition in a Room opposite him, and took up the Candle and went to it, and resolutely ask’d it in the name of God wherefore it haunted him? It replied, Because he had not delivered the message; and withal repeated the threat of tearing hum in pieces if he did not do so speedily: and so, changing itself into many prodigious Shapes, it vanished in white like a Ghost.” In a very dejected frame of mind Taverner related the incident to some of Lord Chichester’s family, and the chaplain, Mr. James South, advised him to go and deliver the message to the window, which he accordingly did, and thereupon experienced great quietness of mind. Two nights later the apparition again appeared, and on learning what had been done, charged him to bear the same message to the executors. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17
Taverner not unnaturally asked if Davis, the step-father, would attempt to do him any harm, to which the spirit gave a very doubtful response, but at length reassured him by threatening Davis If he should attempt anything to his injury, and then vanished away in white. The following day Taverner was summoned before the Court of the celebrated Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down, who carefully examined him about the matter, and advised him the next time the spirit appeared to ask it the following questions: Whence are you? Are you a good or a bad spirit? Where is your abode? What station do you hold? How are you regimented in the other World? What is the reason that you appear for the relief of your son in so small a matter, when so many widows and orphans are oppressed, and none from thence of their relations appear as you do to right them? That night Taverner went to Lord Conway’s house. Feeling the coming presence of the apparition, and being unwilling to create any disturbance within doors, he and his brother went out into the courtyard, where they saw the spirit coming over the wall. He told it what he had done, and it promised not to trouble him any more, but threatened the executors if they did not see the boy righted. “Here his brother put him in mind to ask the Spirit what the Bishop bid him, which he did presently. But it gave him no answer, but crawled on its hands and feet over the wall again, and so vanished in white with a most melodious harmony.” The boy’s friends then brought an action (apparently in the Bishop’s Court) against the executors and trustees; one of the latter, John Costlet, who was also the boy’s uncle, tried the effect of bluff, but the threat of what the apparition could and might do to him scared him into a promise of justice. About five years later, when the story was forgotten, Costlet began to threaten the body with an action, but, coming home drunk one night, he fell off his horse and was killed. In the above there is no mention of the fate of Davis. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17
Whatever explanation we may choose to give of the supernatural element in the above, there seems to be no doubt that such an incident occurred, and that the story is, in the main, true to fact, as it was taken by Glanvill from a letter of Mr. Thomas Alcock’s, the secretary to Bishop Taylor’s Court, who must therefore have heard the entire story form Taverner’s own lips. The incident is vividly remembered in local tradition, from which many picturesque details are added, especially with reference to the trial, the subsequent righting of young David Haddock, and the ultimate punishment of Davis, on which points Glanvill is rather unsatisfactory. According to this source, Taverner (or Tavney, as the name is locally pronounced) felt something get up behind him as he was riding home, and from the eerie feeling that came over him, as well as from the mouldy smell of the grace that assailed his nostrils, he perceived that his companion was not of this World. Finally the ghost urged Taverner to bring the case into Court, and it came up for trial at Carrickfergus. The Counsel for the opposite side browbeat Taverner for inventing such an absurd and malicious story about his neighbour Davis, and ended by tauntingly desiring him to call his witness. The usher of the Court, with a sceptical sneer, called upon James Haddock, and at the third repetition of the name a clap of thunder shook the Court; a hand was seen on the witness-table, and a voice was heard saying, “Is this enough?” Which very properly convinced the jury. Davis slunk away, and on his homeward road fell from his horse and broke his neck. Instead of propounding Bishop Taylor’s shorter catechism, Taverner merely asked the ghost, “Are you happy in your present state?” “If,” it replied in a voice of anger, “you were not the man you are, I would tear you in pieces for asking such a question”; ad then went off in a flash of fire!—which, we fear, afforded but too satisfactory an answer to his question. #RandolphHarris 13 or 17
In other supernatural adventures, at night, passers-by heard ghostly music wafting from the dark Winchester mansion. The bell in the belfry high in the gables tolled regularly at midnight to summon incoming flights of spirits. Later it tolled again to warn these visitors to return to their sepulchers. However, once a week, these departed ones relaxed and face in the Great Ball Room. Notes from Mrs. Winchester’s journal: At the time we passed our evenings in the mansion, which opened up to the fruit orchard. After seven o’clock, an apparition, of the late Mr. Winchester—with his blue eyes, sandy slick blonde hair, his thin white nose, his metallic voice, and his mystic ideas, occasioned us some little disquiet. It used to trouble us to see him rise abruptly and pace two or three times up and down the room, gesticulating the while, mocking with a strange air the patterns of wallpaper. Then he would seat himself down again, empty his glass of milk at a gulp, and commence a discussion about the music of Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa, about the lute of the Hebrews, about the introduction of the organ into our churches, about the shopar, the sabbatic epochs, et cetera. He would knit his brows, plant his sharp elbows on the edge of the table, and lose himself in deep thought. Yes, he perplexed us not a little—we others who were grave accustomed to methodical ideas. However, it was necessary to put up with it; it was a bit of a pleasure to have him with us again. Henry, the butler, in spite of Mr. Winchester’s bantering spirit, in the end grew calm and no longer continued to contradict Mr. Winchester, who began known as the organist, when he was right. As for me, I listened to the wind gambolling without amongst the plane trees of the estate, to the drip of the water from the spouts, and to its dashing against the windows. From time to time one could he the windchimes, a door shut with a bang, a shutter beat against a wall. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17
Then would raise the great clamour of the storm, sweeping, sighing, and groaning in the distance, as if all the invisible powers were seeking and calling on one another in the darkness, while living things hid themselves, sitting in corners, in order to escape a fearful meeting with them. One night, Henry shook his hat like a possessed, and saying in his husky voice, “Surely the Evil One is about this work! What nonsense is that you are singing there, Organist? What to Amschaspands signify to us? or the nine time nine thousand nine hundred and ninety thousand spirits of Envy? Where on Earth did you pick up such strange language?” Outside the rain fell in torrents, the gutters gushed over, the spouts disgorged themselves, and the ditches were swollen into little rivers. When suddenly Henry shouted again, “It is abominable! How can some return from the dead? Abominable to think that every father of a family, even such as bring up their children in fear of God, as exposed to misfortunes.” “Yes,” I replied. “It is so. They say, no doubt rightly, that Heaven orders all things; but the spirit of darkness seems to me to meddle a good deal more than is necessary in them. For one good fellow how many villains do we find, without faith or law. And for one good action how many evil ones? I tell you, my friend, if the Evil One were to count his flock—” I had not time to finish, for at that moment a terrific flash of lightning glared in through the cracks of the shutters, making the lamp burn dim. It was immediately followed by a clap of thunder, crashing, jerky—one of those claps which make you tremble. One might have thought that the World was coming to an end. The clock of the mansion just then struck the half hour. The tolling bells seemed to be just hard by one. From far, very far off, there came a trembling plaintive voice, crying. The time sounded from the belfry of the mansion. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17
The glass door was scarcely opened when came another flash of lightning. The grounds were washed by rain, the gutters of the mansion flushed, its multitude of windows, its gables, the post, glared out from the night, and then was swallowed up in the darkness. That glance of the eye allowed me to see the seven-story tower of the mansion with its innumerable little carvings all clothed in white light. In the tower were bells hanging to black beams, with their clappers, and their ropes hanging down to the body of the mansion. Below that was a stork’s nest, half torn to pieces by the wind,–the young ones with their beaks out, the mother at her wits’ end, her wings extended, while the male bird flew about the shining steeple, his breast thrown forward, his neck bent, his long legs thrown out behind as if defying the thunder peals. It was a strange sight, a veritable Chinese picture—thin, delicate, light, something strange, terrible, upon a black background of clouds broken with streaks of gold. It was astonishing when Earth and Heaven confound themselves, while the good and bad are struggling together, while such mysterious crimes occur around us even as this day, as ghost dance in the grand ball room, as my phantom husband plays the organ. And ghouls dine in the dining room, as demons conjure up storms to make their presence known. Is it strange? Be clam—listen and see. Heaven be with us! The rain steaked the darkness. Then a man appeared in the darkness, and all the supernatural guest set off. The wretched man made no resistance. Henry and I looked at each other’s pale faces. “Good evening,” he said and the organ started playing again. As for me, I turned my heard more than twenty times before I came to my door, fearful that I should see a demon. And when at last, thank Heaven, I was safe in my room, before I got into bed and blew out my light I took the rise precaution of looking under my bed to convince myself that it was not hidden there. I even said a prayer that it would not strangle me during the night. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17
Henry was still in the Grand Ball Room exchanging correspondence with spirits. I think the fascinated him at this point. The grave sound of the organ kept waking me in the night. It was as if martial music swept war on to us, and the simple melodies led me into reveries, it was because the different melodies were the invocation of the spirits of the Earth, who came suddenly into our midst, and made us participants of their own proper essence. My husband, Mr. Winchester was longer a material being, he was no longer composed of a soul; it was almost difficult to comprehend his direction action of occult powers, but the tremble of emotions, elevated my soul to Heaven, melted me, awakened me in the ardour of life. It gave me enthusiasm, love, fear, pity. In the end all my prejudices against the invisible World disappeared, and new facts occurred to confirm me in this fresh manner of thinking. My head was full of shadows and weird reflections. At that moment, a hand touched my arm. It was my William. A ray of the moon, falling on the window-panes, scattered its light around. His face was white, and his stretched-out hand pointed to the shadows. I followed his finger with my eyes, for he evidently was directing my attention to something, and I saw the most terrible sight of which I have a memory—a shadow, motionless, appeared before the most expensive window in the house, against the light surface of the moon. This shadow had a man’s shape, and seemed suspended between Heaven and Earth. Its head hung down upon its breast, its elbows stood out square beside the body, and its legs straight down tapered to a point. Then, at the foot of this deathly apparition, I saw a white figure, kneeling, with long disheveled hair. It was my baby girl, her hands joined in prayer. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17
So much for answers to a few of these endless rumors surrounding our Mystery Lady. Some may laugh at the idea of such an infinity; some may tremble at it; others many crane themselves over the abyss in order to see what passes in the depths. It all, however, comes to the same thing in the end. No one has ever penetrated the mystery which envelops with Winchester mansion. No one shall ever penetrate it. Death does not find echo.
Winchester Mystery House
The Winchester Mystery House wants to wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year! 🎆
A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
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You Pay More Attention to Your Profits than to Your Liberty!
The problem is not that there are problems. The World changes faster than the people in it. Every since the late 1940’s a single dominant strategy has governed most efforts to reduce the gap between the World’s rich and poor. I call this the Second Wave strategy. This approach starts with the premise that Second Wave societies are the apex of evolutionary progress and that, to solve their problems, all societies must replay the industrial revolution essentially as it happened in the West, Russian, or Japan. Progress consists of moving millions of people out of agriculture and into mass production. It requires urbanization, standardization, and all the rest of the Second Wave package. Development, in brief, involves the faithful imitation of an already successful model. Scores of governments in country after country have, in fact, tried to carry out this game plan. A few, like South Korea or Taiwan, where special conditions prevail, appear to be succeeding in establishing a Second Wave society. However, most such efforts have met with disaster. These failures in one Impoverished country after another have been blamed on a mind-bending multiplicity of reasons. Neo-colonialism. Bad planning. Corruption. Backward religions. Tribalism. Transnational corporations. The CIA. Going to slowly. Going too fast. Yet, whatever the reasons, the grim fact remains that industrialization according to the Second Wave model has flopped far more frequently than it has succeeded. Iran offers the most dramatic case in point. As late as 1975 a tyrannical Shah boasted he would make Iran into the most advanced industrial state in the Middle East by pursuing the Second Wave strategy. “The Shah’s builders,” reported Newsweek, “toiled over a glorious array of mills, dams, railroads, highways, and all the other trimmings of a full-fledged industrial revolution.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
In June 1978 international bankers were still scrambling to lend billions at hair-thin interest rates to the Persian Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation, to the Mazadern Textile Company, to Tavanir, the state-owned power utility, to the steel complex at Isfahan and the Iran Aluminum Company, among others. While this buildup was supposedly turning Iran into a “modern” nation, however, corruption ruled Teheran. Conspicuous consumption aggravated the contrast between the rich and poor. Foreign interests—mainly, but not exclusively, American—had a field day. (A German manager in Teheran was paid a third more than he could have earned at home, but his employees worked for one tenth a German worker’s pay-packet.) The urban middle class existed as a tiny island within a sea of misery. Apart from oil, fully two thirds of all the goods produced from the market were consumed in Teheran by one tenth of the country’s population. In the countryside, where income was barely a fifth of that in the city, the rural masses continued to live under revolting and repressive conditions. Nurtured by the West, attempting to apply Second Wave strategy, the millionaires, generals, and hired technocrats who ran the Teheran government conceived of development as a basically economic process. If only the dollar signs were got right–religion, culture, family life, sexual roles—all these would take care of themselves. Cultural authenticity meant little because, steeped in indust-reality, they saw the World as increasingly standardized rather than moving toward diversity. Resistance to Western ideas was simply dismissed as “backward” by a cabinet 90 percent of whose members had been educated at Harvard, Berkeley, or European universities. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
Despite certain unique circumstances—like the combustive mixture of oil and Islam—much of what happened in Iran was common to other countries pursuing the Second Wave strategy. With some variation, much the same might be said of dozens of other poverty-stricken societies from Asia and Africa to Latin America. The collapse of the Shah’s regime in Teheran has sparked a widespread debate in other capitals from Manila to Mexico City. One frequently asked question has to do with the pace of change. Was the pace too accelerated? Did the Iranians suffer from future shock? Even with oil revenues, can governments create a large enough middle class rapidly enough to avoid revolutionary upheaval? However, the Iranian tragedy and the substitution of an equally repressive theocracy for the Shah’s regime compel us to question the very root premises of the Second Wave strategy. Is classical industrialization the only path to progress? And when industrial civilization itself is caught in its terminal agonies, does it make any sense to imitate the industrial model at a time? So long as the Second Wave nations remained “successful”—stable, rich, and getting richer—it was easy to look upon them as a model for the rest of the World. By the late 1960’s, however, the general crisis of industrialism has exploded. Strikes, blackouts, breakdowns, crime, and psychological distress spread throughout the Second Wave World. Magazines did cover pieces on “why nothing works anymore.” Energy and family systems shook. Value systems and urban structures crumbled. Pollution, corruption, inflation, alienation, loneliness, racism, bureaucratism, divorce, mindless consumerism, all came under savage attack. Economists warned of the possibility of a total collapse of the financial system. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
A global environmental movement, meanwhile, warned that pollution, energy, and resource limits might soon make it impossible for even the existing Second Wave nations to continue normal operations. Beyond this, it was pointed out, even if the Second Wave strategy did, miraculously, work in the poor nations, it would turn the entire planet into a single giant factory and wreak ecological havoc. Gloom descended on the richest nations as the general crisis of industrialism deepened. And if the Second Wave strategy could not work, suddenly millions around the World asked themselves why anyone would want to emulate a civilization that was itself in the throes of such violent disintegration. Another startling development also undermined the belief that the Second Wave strategy was the only path from rags to riches. Always implicit in this strategy was the assumption that “first you ‘develop,’ then you grow rich”—that affluence was the result of hard work, thrift, the Protestant Ethic, and a long process of economic and social transformation. However, the OPEC embargo and the sudden flood of petro-dollars into the Middle East stood this Calvinist notion on its pointed head. Within mere months unexpected billions spewed, splashed, and spumed into Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Libya, and other Arab countries, and the World saw seemingly limitless wealth preceding, rather than following, transformation. In the Middle East, it was the money that produced the drive to “develop,” rather than “development” that produced the money. Nothing like that, on so vast a scale, had ever happened before. Meanwhile, competition among the rich nations themselves was heating up. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
With South Korean steel being used at California construction sites, television sets from Taiwan being marketed in Europe, tractors from India being sold in the Middle East and China emerging dramatically as a major potential industrial force, concern is mounting over how far developing economies will undercut established industries in the advanced nations of Japan, the United States of America and Europe. Striking French steelworkers, as one might expect, put it more colourfully. They called for an end to “the massacre of industry” and protesters occupied the Eiffel Tower. In one after another of the older industrial nations, Second Wave industries and their political allies attacked the “export of jobs” and policies that spread industrialization to the poorer countries. In short, doubts mushroom on all sides as to whether the much-trumpeted Second Wave strategy could—or even should—work. Once public service ceases to be the chief business of the citizens, and they prefer to serve with their wallet rather than with their person, the state is already near its ruin. It is necessary to march off to battle? They pay mercenary troops and stay at home. Is it necessary to go to the council? They name deputies and stay at home. By dint of laziness and money, they finally have soldiers to enslave the country and representatives to sell it. The hustle and bustle of commerce and the arts, the avid interest in profits, softness and the love of amenities: these are what change personal services into money. A person gives up part of one’s profit in order to increase it at leisure. Give money and soon you will be in chains. The word finance is a slave word. It is unknown in the city. In a truly free state, the citizens do everything with their own hands and nothing with their money. Far from paying to be exempted from their duties, they would pay to fulfill them themselves. Far be it from me to be sharing commonly held ideas. I believe that forced labour is less opposed to liberty than taxes. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
The better a state is constituted, the more public business takes precedence over private business in the minds of the citizens. There even is far less private business, since, with the sum of common happiness providing a more considerable portion of each individual’s happiness, less remains for one to look for through private efforts. In a well run city everyone flies to the assemblies; under a bad government no one wants to take a step to get to them, since no one takes an interest in what happens there, for it is predictable that the general will will not predominate, and in the end domestic concerns absorb everything. Good laws lead to making better laws; bad laws bring about worse ones. Once someone says what do I care? about the affairs of state, the state should be considered lost. The cooling off of patriotism, the activity of private interest, the largeness of states, conquests, the abuse of government: these have suggested the route of using deputies or representatives of the people in the nation’s assemblies. It is what in certain countries is called the third estate. Thus the private interest of two orders is given first and second place; the public interest is given merely third place. Sovereignty cannot be represented for the same reason that it cannot be alienated. It consists essentially in the general will, and the will does not allow of being represented. It is either itself or something else; there is nothing in between. The deputies of the people, therefore, neither are nor can be its representatives; they are merely its agents. They cannot conclude anything definitively. Any law that the populace has not ratified in person is null; it is not a law at all. The English people believes itself to be free. It is greatly mistake; it is free only during the election of the members of Parliament. Once they are elected, the populace is enslaved; it is nothing. The use the English people makes of that freedom in the brief moments of its liberty certainly warrants their losing it. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
The idea of representatives is modern. It comes to us from feudal government, that iniquitous and absurd government in which the human race is degraded and the name of humans is in dishonour. In the ancient republics and even in monarchies, the people never had representatives. The word itself was unknown. It is quite remarkable that in Rome where the tribunes were so sacred, no one even imagined that they could usurp the functions of the people, and that in the midst of such a great multitude, they never tried to pass a single plebiscite on their own authority. However, we can size up the difficulties that were sometimes caused by the crowd by what took place in the time of the Gracchi, when part of the citizenry voted from the rooftops. Where right and liberty are everything, inconveniences are nothing. In the care of this wise people, everything was handled correctly. It allowed its lictors to do what its tribunes would not have dared to do. It has no fear that its lictors would want to represent it. However, to explain how the tribunes sometimes represented, it is enough to conceive how the government represents the sovereign. Since the law is merely the declaration of the general will, it is clear that the people cannot be represented in the legislative power. However, it can and should be represented in the executive power, which is merely force applied to the law. This demonstrates that, on close examination, very few nations would be found to have laws. Be that as it may, it is certain that, since they have no share in executive power, the tribunes could never represent the Roman people by the rights of their office, but only by usurping those of the senate. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
Among the Greeks, whatever the populace had to do, it did by itself. It was constantly assembled at the public square. It inhabited a mild climate; it was not greedy; its slaves did the work; its chief item of business was its liberty. No longer having the same advantages, how are the same right to be preserved? Your harsher climates cause you to have more needs. (To adopt in cold countries the luxury and softness of the Eastern cultures is to desire to be given their chains; it is submitting to these with even greater necessity than they did.) Because of the climate, six months out of the year the public square is uninhabitable; your muted tongues cannot make themselves understood in the open air; you pay more attention to your profits than to your liberty; and you are less fearful of slavery than you are misery. What! can liberty be maintained only with the support of servitude? Perhaps. The two extremes meet. Everything that is not in nature has its drawbacks, and civil society more so than all the rest. There are some unfortunate circumstances where one’s liberty can be preserved only at the expense of someone else’s, and where the citizen can be perfectly free only if the slave is completely enslaved. Such was the situation in Sparta. As for you, modern peoples, you do not have slaves, but you yourselves are slaves. You pay for their liberty with your own. It is in vain that you crow about that preference. In find more cowardice in it than humanity. I do not mean by all this that having slaves is necessary, nor that the right of slavery is legitime, for I have proved the contrary. I am mere stating the reason why modern peoples who believe themselves to be free have representatives, and why ancient peoples did not have them. Be that as it may, the moment a people gives itself representatives, it is no longer free; it no longer exists. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
With the Third Wave on its way out, the age of information, perhaps the Fourth Wave will be the age of slavery. The public started by destroying and removing their statues, which were part of history. They teach important lesson. Patriots are becoming rare and being shamed. The nation does not protect its boarders and disallows law enforcement to work together, which puts national security and public safety at risk. Tyrants locked you in your homes, make you wear pampers on your face and forced medication on you. Next, the American people will be so offended by knowledge that the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden will be confiscated and/or destroyed. And people with sit in their tiny, low budget, low-rise, mid-level rise, and high-rise apartments (which should be red tagged and condemned because of code violations such as leaking pipes, asbestos growing mold, roach, rat and demon infestations, thick foul stenches assaulting the hallways) because real estate has become so expensive. Instead of working, they will be eating government rationed food, spending all day watching television, or smoke dope and have seances. They will not be able to go outside without permission or a valid doctor’s note. All things considered, I do not see that it is possible henceforth for the sovereign to preserve among us the exercise of its rights, unless the city is very small. However, if it is very small, will it be subjugated? When it comes to “Youth Problems,” one can make little distinction in value between talking about middle-class youths being groomed for one to three hundred-thousand-dollar “slots” in business and Madison Avenue, or underprivileged hoodlums fatalistically hurrying to a reformatory; or between hard-working young fathers and Hipsters with beards, McMansions and chicken farms. For the salient things is the sameness among them, the waste of humanity. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
In our society, bright lively children, with the potentiality for knowledge, noble ideals, honest effort, and some kind of worthwhile achievement, are transformed into useless and cynical bipeds, or decent young men trapped or early resigned, whether in or out of the organized system. It is desperately hard these days for an average child to grow up to be a man, for our present organized system of society does not want men. They are not safe. They do not suit. Our public officials are now much more concerned about the “waste of human resources.” One of my favourite professors and former President of Harvard, Dr. Conant taught me a lot about the Mayflower, which was a ship his maternal family came to America on. As his paternal family was involved in the founding of Salem, Massachusetts, which was home of the witch trials, we also spent countless hours discussing the subject. Anyway, Dr. Conant surveyed high schools. He was always looking for students who showed promise. The ones who were exposed to the more advanced texts and techniques. Those who stressed about college entrance exams. The students at the top of their class, the ones who were scholarship worthy, and participated in clubs. However, he could not find too many serious students, and some considered his reports superficial because they avoided “the real issues” on the part of our public officials, which many think is one of the big causes for failures in student success. It seems our leaders are setting our youth up to be slaves, which is why they do not care about their futures. However, our society cannot have it both ways: to maintain a conformist and ignoble system and to have skillful and spirited humans to man that system. A better World requires no deep wisdom or astonishing imagination to know what we need. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
The prevalent sentiment that it is infinitely impractical to follow the suggestions of common reason, is not sound. If it is impractical, it is because some people do not want to, and the rest of us do not want to enough. For instance, there is a persistent presumption among our liberal statesmen that the old radical-liberal program has been importantly achieved, and that therefore there is no familiar major proposal practical to remedy admittedly crying ills. This is a false presumption. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the radical-liberal program was continually compromised, curtailed, sometimes realized in form without content, sometimes swept under the rug and heard of no more. This has occurred, and keeps occurring, by the mutual accommodation of both “liberals” and “conservatives” in the interests of creating our present coalition of semimonopolies, trade unions, government, Madison Avenue, et cetera (including a large bloc of outlaw gangsters); thriving on maximum profits and full employment; but without regard for utility, quality, rational productivity, personal freedom, independent enterprise, human scale, manly vocation, or genuine culture. It is in this accommodation that our politicians survive, but it does not make for statesmanship. We have only had three reputable statemen in ninety years, two of them died seventy years ago. Agree or disagree, we have been living in political limbo and with voodoo economics when it comes to the economy. Naturally this unnatural system has generated its own troubles, whether we think of the unlivable communities, the collapse of public ethics, or the problems of the youth. These ills are by no means inherent in modern technological or ecological condition, nor in the American Constitution as such. However, they have followed precisely from the betrayal and neglect of the old radical-liberal program and other changes proposed to keep up with the advancing technology, the growth of population, and the revolution in morals. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
When they were ripe, important forms did not occur, and we have inherited the consequences: a wilderness of unfinished situations, unequal developments and inconsistent standards, as well as new business. And now, sometimes the remedy must be stoically to go back and carry through the old programs (as we are having to do with racial, gender, and immigration status integration), exempli gratia, finally to insist on stringent master-planning of cities and conserving of resources, or on really limiting monopolies. Sometimes we must make changes to catch up—exempli gratia, to make the laws more consistent with the cultural revolution, or to make the expenditure on public goods more commensurate with the geometrically increasing complications of a more crowded population. And sometimes, finally, we have to invent really new devices—exempli gratia, how to make the industrial technology humanly important for its workers, how to use leisure nobly, or even how, in a rich society, to be decently poor if one so chooses. For it is impossible for the average boy to grow up and use the remarkable capacities that are in every boy, unless the World is for him and makes sense. And when it understands that its chief wealth is these capacities, a society makes sense. Most people eventually detach themselves to some degree, both emotionally and physically, from their families of origin. In so doing, people shift their focus from relationships with parents and siblings to relationships with a partner and children. These relationships in the family of orientation consume substantial physical and mental energy. Furthermore, whereas in family-of-origin relations there is a natural progression toward some degree of independence, marriage and parenting are relationships that are pledged for life (at least in principle). Consequently, these relationships have a powerful impact on psychological well-being, and the psychological well-being or illness of an individual in such a family context has a powerful impact on these family relations. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
There is an exceptionally robust relationship between mental health problems and marital distress. This interpersonal problem can be found among those with depression, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, alcoholism and other substance use disorders, and psychogenic sexual dysfunctions. It is extremely difficult to locate an individual whose spouse has major depression or alcoholism, but who otherwise feels that the two of them have a great marriage. Marital distress would presumably be problematic for many people with social anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, or personality disorders, were they actually able to initiate and maintain marriages. Scientists and philosophers alike might debate which is the more intimate human bond: parent and child, or husband and wife. A parent-child relationships is one of blood; yet a marriage is a relationship of sustained intimacy until death, at least in theory. When a marriage goes bad, mental health can suffer as a result. In this regard, marital distress may act as a stressor that triggers symptoms of psychopathology. A failing marriage can raise questions of blame, faltered responsibility, self-doubt, feelings of personal failure, and uncertainty about the present and future. The catastrophic and dysphoric feelings that accompany marital distress can exhaust the strongest of egos. In many such cases, psychopathology could be interpreted as a result of marital distress. An alternative account of the relationship between marital distress and psychopathology sees the deterioration of marriage as affected by symptoms of psychological disorder. To state the case plainly, how enjoyable is marriage to a depressed person? What marriage is strong enough to tolerate and absorb the radical shifts in mood and behaviour associated with bipolar disorder? How fulfilling can a marriage be to a wife who is starving herself to death and eschewing pleasures of the flesh, or to a husband drinking himself to death and generally incoherent or belligerent? These symptoms are a burden that even the best marriages often cannot bear. When the mental health of one member depreciates, a union between two people that is this close is inevitably upset. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
Psychological disorders also appear to generate parenting problems. If any, there are few interpersonal tasks that require as much energy, effort, and skills as raising children. Effective parenting requires undivided attention and emotional resilience. When a parent’s mental balance is tipped by problems such as depression, bipolar disorder, or alcoholism, the possibility for effective parenting declines considerably. For this reason, people with mental health problems often raise children with behavioural or psychological problems of their own. Fortunately, many factors that moderate the relationship between parental mental health and child distress can render a child resilient to the ill effects of troubled parenting. Some consideration should be granted to the possibility (although it is somewhat speculative at this time) that children’s behavioural problems may trigger symptoms of psychopathology in parents. Mental health problems are sensitive to a variety of interpersonal contacts, including those with relative strangers. It is reasonable to assume that a child with conduct, attention, emotional, or behavioural problems may stress a parent, perhaps leading to depression when this “failure” at parenting is internalized, or to alcoholism as a means of coping and escape. Some interpersonal phenomena, such as conflict, EE (expressive emotions), negative AS (affective style), and the provision of a “solution” to a system problem, appear in both family-of-origin and family-of-orientation contexts. Though many scientists often conceptualize and test fairly linear cause—effect relations in these context (exempli gratia, family conflict leads to depression, bipolar disorder leads to marital distress), family systems theorists see cause and effect in all members of a system. For example, a key assumption is that regardless of how problems originate, they persist as aspects of current, ongoing interactions systems. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
Cybernetic feedback processes provide a framework for understanding how systems are maintained, which is of greater interests than etiological hypotheses, or linear (historical) notions of cause and effect. It is further assumed that problems occur not so much within people are between them—that psychological “symptoms” and interaction systems are inextricably interwoven. Thus, from a systems perspective, neither the effect of psychopathology on the family nor the effect of the family on psychopathology is a primary focus. Rather, the concern is with the way in which all members of the system maintain the psychological problem. In many situations the psychological problem is functional in some way for the family. Families that structure their lives around alcoholism or eating disorders are collectively maintaining the psychological problem. Therefore, the problem is clearly not an individual problem, but a system problem. And sometimes maybe even your loud dog is having a psychological problem that needs to be addressed. The popularity of Prozac and related antidepressant drugs skyrocketed in the 1990s. Many clinicians believe that Prozac is being prescribed much too often. They worry in particular about its se with children, elderly people, and people whose psychological problems are relatively minor. However, I wonder if more people took Prozac, would they stop using marijuana because often times people “have to smoke marijuana to stay calm.” It is not just for pain and entertainment. Nonetheless, clinicians have been given something else to worry about when it comes to Prozac. Prozac is also being described to dogs with mood and behavioural problems. Dr. Peter Neville, an expert on animal behaviour, described dogs given Prozac. Jannie, a pointer with a shadow-chasing problem, was prescribed the drug for an obsessive-compulsive disorder. George, a Staffordshire bull terrier, was given it to combat “sustained rage assaults” on other dogs. And Henry, an English bull terrier, kept pinning his owner every time she tired to leave home. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
At first glance, there may seem to be something odd or wrong about human beings serving as testing ground for medication that is later given to animals. However, the animal doctors who proscribe Prozac argue that it would be wrong to withhold a helpful treatment from pets simply because such applications initially make us uncomfortable. After all, they assert, if Prozac does help produce beneficial feelings and better behaviours in these troubled dogs, it can make an enormous difference for both the patients and their family members, just as it does in many cases of human depression. Should ever any scheme of things acquire absolute authority it would exclude from awareness anything beyond its limits. Nothing then could content with it and no change could occur. It and the society it organized would be static and immortal. Each individual by allegiance to that scheme would share in that immortality. The dread of death would be overcome. No scheme of things has ever achieved such authority, though some schemes have endured for millennia. Change is unstoppable; for no scheme of things has ever convinced everyone. All schemes involve limitation and denial. They are humanmade. They reach out into the way things are, the realm of the existing, and make order. Then claim to be eternal. A scheme of things is a plan for salvation. How well, it works will depend upon its scope and authority. If it is small, even great achievement in its service will do little to dispel death. We seek the largest possible scheme, not in hunger for truth, but in hunger for meaning. The more comprehensive the scheme, the greater its promise of banishing dread. If we can more our lives mean something in a cosmic scheme we will live in the certainty of immortality. The very great success of Christianity for a thousand years follows upon its having been of universal scope, including and accounting for everything, assigning to all things a proper place; offering to every human, whether prince or beggar, savant or fool, the privilege of working in the Lord’s vineyard; and upon its being accepted as true throughout the Western World. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
Beguinage’s were groups of women who dedicated themselves to chastity and poverty, pooled their possession, and formed spiritual or residential communes. Often they lived together, but some continued to live at home with their families. Beguines chose to be eternally celibate rather than vow eternal celibacy. The Albigensians (Beguinage’s were suspected of having the same origin sometime in the twelfth century) taught that marriage and pleasures of the flesh prevented salvation and that parents, who had by definition already fornicated, were domed souls. Albigensianism must have influenced at least some women to look elsewhere than unlikely marriage for a satisfying life. In fact, many women needed no prodding to consider abstaining from marriage. Living, as most did, in cramped quarters with no privacy from their families, they observed their parents’ marriages firsthand and understood well what lay in store for them. Centuries earlier, Ambrose had discouraged women from abandoning their virginal state with his succinct reminder of what marriage would bring: “Pregnancy, the crying of infants, the torture caused by rival, the cares of household management.” Women who married were often the most melancholy mourners of the virginity they had surrendered and the most fervent advocates for the celibacy that would restore a modicum of serenity and control to their frenetic lives. Church officials could not believe such celibate free agents as the Beguines could manage to survive chastely in the wicked World and so they must be locked up. Furthermore, the private or informal vows of sexual purity they had previously sworn were now forbidden—they were directed to swear formal oaths. Then these formally avowed celibates had to be cloistered lest they face temptation, weaken, and default on their vows. In the tradition of the early Fathers, who wrote that “sin came from a woman, but salvation through a virgin,” these men revered virgins but hated women. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
In the sixteenth century, Angela Merici established a noncloistered women’s order, the Company of St. Ursula, the legendary British saint martyred, with her eleven thousand virgin companions, as she rode to her wedding. Angela’s choice of St. Ursula was significant; virginity was the cornerstone of her Company, and social work, teaching, and nursing its mission. Novices required their parent’s permission and had to be at least twelve, the minimum legal age for women to marry. Angela directed novices to preserve their virginity, which she considered an angelic quality. The Company of St. Ursula survived until 1810, its sisters grateful that the Church granted them permission to maintain their chastity in the World of their blood relatives, neighbours, and the struggling poor they were dedicated to serving. However, in general, because of the way Mary Ward was treated, a lesson all devout and celibate woman learned that was that if they were also independent, strong-minded, ambitions, and visionary, their virtue was suspect. While some believe there is freedom in having the charism of virginity, we also need to say something about how one arrives at that freedom, and about the price to be paid. In fact, one of the greatest dangers to guard against in this whole area is precisely the danger of delusion. After sin, sexuality is no longer a neutral reality which we can easily dominate. It has become ambiguous. The Christian Bible is familiar with this ambivalent, dramatic character of sexuality. It knows that passion is capable of dragging a person to ruin: “For love is strong as death”—we read in the Song of Songs—“passion as relentless as Sheol,” reports SG 8.6. The Old Testament is full of dismal stories in which individuals or entire cities appear as victims of the devastating power of sexual disorder. It is true that Jesus came to redeem humanity therefore also human sexuality. It is also true that “condemnation will never come to those who are in Christ Jesus,” reports Romans 8.1. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
However, redemption has not exempted human beings from concupiscence and the need for struggle. Certainly Jesus redeems and saves human sexuality, but He redeems and saves it as He does with everything else, through the cross, in other words, by calling us to share His struggle, so what we can later share His victory. When Israel entered into possession of the Promised Land, it is written that “the Lord allowed these nations to remain; He did not hurry to drive them out, and did not deliver them into the hands of Joshua,” reports Jg. 2.23. The Lord did subject to Israel the nations who occupied the land of Canaan, but not all of the, and not all at once. He allowed some to remain, in order to put Israel to the test by their means, and to teach Israel the art of war. He has done the same with us in Baptism. He has not taken away all our enemies, our temptations; some, our appetites, He has left with us, so that we would learn to fight and to hope in Him, and experience our weakness. Christ, then, did not eliminate the concupiscence of the flesh in us, but He has given us the means not to give in to it. The first and most common means available to us to preserve and increase virginity of the heart is mortification. St. Paul assures us: “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live,” reports Romans 8.13. This is spiritual mortification, where “spiritual” does not mean an internal type of mortification, as opposed to an external, bodily one, but mortification that is both external and internal, practiced with the help of the Holy Spirit. In short, a type of mortification that is not itself a work of the “flesh,” but of faith. For a soul tht wants to be the spouse of Christ, mortification is necessary, just as, in the case of a human love, it is necessary to learn the language of the beloved. “Consider,” writers the philosopher we have already mentioned, who remained celibate for love of the divine majesty, “a purely human situation. If a lover is unable to speak the language of the beloved, then he or she must learn the other’s language, however difficult it may be. Otherwise their relationship could never be a happy one; they would never be able to converse with each other. So it is with mortifying oneself in order to love God. God is spirit: only a mortified person can in some way speak His language. If you do not want to mortify yourself, then you cannot love God either. What you are speaking is something quite different.” #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
Some first-century Christians were struggling to survive in the Greek town of Corinth. The Bible says, “The people were in deep poverty and deep trouble,” reports 2 Corinthians 8.2. What did they do in their time of need? Did they complain and pout? Did they say, “God, why do we have so much trouble coming against us?” Not at all. The Scripture records, “In the midst of their great trouble, they stayed full of joy and they gave generously to others.” Notice they sowed a seed in their time of need. They knew if they would help to meet other people’s needs, God would meet theirs. In your times of difficulty, do just what they did. Number one, stay full of joy. Number two, go out and sow a seed. Help someone else, and you will be helped. The Bible says, “Give generously, for your gifts will return to you later. Divide your gifts among many, for in the days ahead you yourself may need much help,” reports Ecclesiastes 11.1-2. Notice, God is giving us a principle here that will cause us to have our needs supplied during those tough times that occasionally comes. Give generously right now, because in the future you may need some help. God is keeping a record of every good deed you have ever done. He is keeping a record of every seed you have ever sown. And in your time of need, He will make sure that somebody is there to help you. Your generous gifts will come back to you. God has seen every smile you have ever given to a hurting person. He has observed every time you went out of the way to lend a helping hand. God has witnessed when you have given sacrificially, giving even money that perhaps you needed desperately for yourself or your family. God is keeping those records. Some people will tell you that it does not make any different whether you gibe or not, or that it does not do any good. However, do not listen to those lies. God has promised that your generous gifts will come back to you. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
Put some action behind your prayers. If you are believing for a promotion at work, do not just say, “God, I am counting on you.” Certainly, you should pray, but do more than pray. God out and help your family, or do something to get some seed in the ground that God can bless. Your gifts will go up as a memorial before God. Perhaps you are hoping to buy a new Cresleigh Home or get out of debt. So a special seed that relates to your specific need. We cannot buy God’s goodness, but we can exercise our faith through our giving. The Scripture says, “When we give, God is able to make it all up to us by giving us everything we need and more so there will be not only enough for our needs, but we will have plenty left over so that we can give to others,” reports 2 Corinthians 9.8. God has promised us that when we give, He will give back to us. Sow a special offering. So something out of the ordinary as an expression of your faith. If you will do that, God will pour out His favour in a new way. If you want to live a successful life now, do not hoard what God has given you. Learn to sow it in faith. Remember, when you give, you are preparing the way for God to meet your needs today and in the future. The luminous understand of cosmic truths given one by this experience has still to be connected to, and brought into relation with, one’s everyday human character. What one feels in these beautiful minutes is really a far-off echo from a higher, diviner World. The echo wanes and vanishes but its origin does not. One day, soon or late, one may pick it up again and this time learn of the greatness secreted within one. No glimpse is wasted, even if it does pass away. For not only does it leave a memory to stir comfort guide, inspire, or mediate upon, but it also leaves a beneficial advance forward. Each glimpse is to be regarded as a step taken in the direction of the goal, or as a stage in the process of work needed to be done on oneself, or as a further cleanings of the accretions impurities animalities and egoisms which hide the true Self. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
If one’s own work is fully and faithfully done, the time comes when the power to prolong a glimpse is at the disciple’s command. One is then able not only to bring it on at will but also to extend its length at will. The higher awareness falls like pollen for a few short hours, perhaps, only to be blown away for long years. Yet this intervening period need not be wasted. It should be used to cut down the obstructions in one’s character and to fill up the deficiencies in one’s equipment. This done, one will grow more and more into one’s spiritual selfhood with every return to temporary awareness of it. When it comes to the faith of Sacrament, though, some are gravely tempted; at first blush, that would seem to be their fault, but act, at second blush, it is the Enemy’s. My suggestion? Do just the opposite of what the Devil suggests. That is to say, try to hold your water, but do not try to make sense out of commandments the Devil has turned into conundrums. Just believe in the words of God. Put your belief in His Saints and Prophets, and the Vociferous Enemy will throw up his hands in despair; the same sort of advice is found in the Letter of James (4.7). Often when one has to bear up under such affronts, there is some small consolations, perhaps even a compliment. That is to say, the Devil does not spend must of his precious time trying the virtue of Infidels and Sinners; these poor blokes he can have served up to him anytime he wants. It is always the Faithfull that are the delicacies at his dinners. Continue your intellectual journey, My Friend, with simple and undoubting faith, and receive the Sacrament with the reverence of a suppliant. When your intellectual capacity reaches its natural limits, remember God’s knowledge knows no bounds. When intellectual failure does happen—and it happens more frequently than Humankind likes to admit—know that God is not the cause. You are the cause because you put your faith in yourself. Which is a roundabout way of saying the person who believes in oneself has a fool for a god. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
Release your faith in words. Even though God desires to answer the prayers and meet the needs of every individual, someone has to request it in this Earth either by saying it or praying it. He already knows the problem or the need before you ask, but it seems as though God cannot move until someone on Earth has requested it. He has given the authority of this Earth to humankind, and He cannot violate His Word. “The Heaven, even the Heavens, are the Lord’s: but the Earth hath He given to the children of men,” reports Psalms 115.16. This passage of scripture agrees with Jesus’ words in Matthew 16.19, “Whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven,” and also in Mark 11.24, “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” God cannot violate His Word. It seems as though He does not come in the Earth to destroy the works of the devil unless someone on the Earth uses their authority by requesting or demanding it in the name of Jesus. The authority of the Earth has been given to man. In Galatians 3.13 you can see that you are redeemed from the curse of the Law, which includes poverty, sickness, and spiritual death. Here again, someone must enforce it. You must demand your rights in Jesus’s name. You have legal authority in this Earth through that name. In Mark 16.17-18, Jesus said, “These signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. Jesus has given us the power of attorney to use His name and that name is above every name. (Phil. 2.9-10). To change fear into perfect loving requires a clear definition of grace. Perhaps the most profound type of core experience comes in what it means to be “struck by grace.” By grace we mean the gift of God that we are loved and accepted without effort on our part. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
Grace is often referred to as unmerited love from God. Do we know what it means to be struck by grace? It happens; or it does not happen. Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we talk through the dark value of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel our separation is deeper than usual. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, or hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after years, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear. At that moment it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted,” accepted by that which is greater than you. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. However, everything is transformed. It is through grace, the in-flowing of God’s love, that we become able to love our neighbour from the great reservoir of God-given love within. Dear Lord in Heaven, I want to do something out of the ordinary in the realm of giving, something that will expand my faith, and cause me to know that when the answer comes, it is directly attributable to You and Your blessings on my willingness to give. God, you are all things graciously. You are the mystery unfolding cosmos and humanity. You are my homeland, my most original ground. Your Presence welds all things together. You are the caring love that carries me like Mother Earth does forest, flower, and tree. Your Presence alone is lasting home. Gratitude to Mother Earth, sailing though night and day—and to her soil: rich, rare, and sweet in our minds so be it. Gratitude to Plants, the sun-facing light-changing leaf and fine root-hairs; standing still through wind and rain; their dance is in the flowing spiral grain in our minds so be it. Gratitude to Air, bearing the soaring Swift and the silent Owl at dawn. Breath of our song clear spirit breeze in our minds so it be. Gratitude to Wild Beings, our brothers, teaching secrets, freedoms, and ways; who share with us their milk; self-complete, brave, and aware in our minds so be it. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
Gratitude to Water: clouds, lakes, rivers, glaciers; holding or releasing; streaming through all our bodies salty seas in our minds so be it. Gratitude to the Sun: blinding pulsing light through trunks of trees, through mists, warming caves where bears and snakes sleep—one who wakes us—in our minds so be it. Gratitude to the Great Sky who holds billions of stars—and goes yet beyond that—beyond all powers, and thoughts and yet is within us—Grandfather Space. The Mind is his Wife so be it. As for slanderers, may their hopes come to naught, and may all wickedness perish. May all Thine enemies be destroyed. Do Thou uproot the dominion of arrogance; crush it and subdue it in our day. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who breakest the power of the enemy and bringest low the arrogant. May Thy tender mercies, O Lord our God, be stirred towards the righteous and the pious, towards the leaders of Thy people America, towards all the scholars that have survived, toward the righteous proselytes and toward us. Grant Thy favour unto all who faithfully trust in Thee, and may our portion ever be with them. May we never suffer humiliation for in Thee do we put our trust. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who are the staff and trust of the righteous. The throne and dynasty of David are historic symbols of righteous government and the restoration of American’s home land. Please return in mercy to America, Thy city, and dwell Thou therein as Thou hast promised. Please rebuild it in our own day as an enduring habitation, and speedily set up therein the throne of David. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who rebuildest America. Cause the Dynast of American soon to flourish and may it be exalted through Thy saving power, for we daily await Thy deliverance. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who causest salvation to come fourth. Please hear our voice, O Lord our God, have compassion upon us and receive our prayers in loving favour for Thou, O God, hearkenest unto prayers and supplications. Please turn us not from Thy presence without Thy blessing, O our King, for Thou hearest the prayers of Thy people America with compassion. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who hearkenest unto prayer. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
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You are Not Worthy and I Do Not Value My Relationship with You!
Success come from knowing that you did the best and are courageously living each moment as fully as possible. When one thinks about it, it is only the existence of marriage that makes virginity a choice, and only the existence of virginity that makes marriage a choice. Without either of them there would no longer be any “choice,” or, if there were (as between marriage and so-called free love, or getting married and staying single solely for the sake of freedom and an undisturbed life), it would be morally unacceptable. In saying this we are not saying anything new and revolutionary, but are only correcting a certain conditioning bound up with particular cultures and historical moments, and getting back to the ideas and attitudes of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit never ceases to guide the Church, in every area, to a knowledge of the complete truth. By the working of the Holy Spirit, revelation, like a precious spirit in a valuable temple, constantly renews its youth and also makes the temple grow younger. The Holy Spirit—as I said above—does not do new things, but makes new things. He makes them young again, restores them to their original splendour, and He does the same with the charism of consecrated virginity. When difficult things are asked of us, even things contrary to the longings of our heart, remember that the loyalty we pledge to the cause of Christ is to the supreme devotion of our lives. Of course, we all have some habits or flaws or personal history that could keep us from complete spiritual immersion in this work. However, God is our Father and is exceptionally good at forgiving and forgetting sins we have forsaken, perhaps because we give Him so much practice in doing so. In any case, there is divine help for every one of us at any hours we feel to make a change in our behaviour. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
On the subject of getting back to the spirit and thought of Jesus, I have been struck by the fact that in Matthew’s Gospel, immediately after those sayings of Jesus about those who do not marry for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven, comes His words about children—without any break, in fact linked to them by a temporal adverb: “Then (!) children were brought to Him so He could lay His hands on them and pray, but the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me,” reports Matthew 19.13-14. In this way, Jesus’ words about voluntary chastity are enclosed between two major sayings of His about marriage: one regarding the indissolubility of marriage (“Have you not read that He Who created them from the beginning made them male and female?”), the other about children. Children are the fruit of marriage; they are the love of the two spouses made flesh. To welcome children, as Jesus does, is to welcome in the fullest way and in its most profound implications, the reality of marriage. To say, “Let the little children come to Me” is like saying, “Let the spouses, let the fathers and mothers come to Me.” Parents know very well that to welcome their children is to welcome them, in fact it is more. Naturally, all this is true when the marriage itself is lived in faith and in harmony with the will of God. Only in faith do the two charisms meet and shed light on one another. This is why the martyr St. Ignatius of Antioch, whom we heard warning virgins to be humble, admonishes married people in the same text to marry “in the Lord.” “It is proper,” he writes at the beginning of the second century, “that spouses should enter their union with the bishop’s consent so that the wedding takes place according to the Lord and not according to concupiscence, and that everything is done for the honour of God.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
Everything is always brought back to the same source, the lordship of Christ. If it is embraced “for the Lord,” virginity has value. If it is celebrated and lived “according to the Lord, matrimony has value. However, let us advance still further in our teaching about charisms. A charism—says St. Paul—is a particular “manifestation of the Spirit given to each one for the common good,” reports 1 Corinthians 12.7. St. Peter says the same thing when he writes “to the extent that each of you has received a gift (charisma), use it to sever one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace,” 1 Peter 4.10. What does all this mean when we apply it to our case? It means that celibacy and virginity are also for the married, and that marriage is also for virgins, in other words for their benefit. Consecrated virginity, therefore, is not a private matter, a private choice of perfection. On the contrary, it is “for the common good” to be used “to serve” others. The gift is destined only for some, for those who are called, but all are its beneficiaries. Such is the essential, apparently contradictory nature of a charism. It is something specific and individual—“a manifestation of the Spirit given to each one,” but at the same time it is something which is to be placed at the service of all (“for the common good”). In the Church, virgins and married people mutually “edify” one another. The married are reminded by virgins of the primacy of God and of the things that do not pass away. They are introduced to love of God’s Word, which consecrated persons, having more time and being more available, are able to study in greater depth in order to “break” the bread of the Word for their brothers and sisters who are more taken up with the occupations of the World. However, even virgins and celibates also learn something from married people. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
What they learn is to be generous, to forget themselves, to serve life and often to have a certain humanity that comes from direct contact with the events of life. Some people find it difficult to pray or even dedicated an hour of their day to God. However, if one looks at married people, young mothers and fathers have to get up not once but five, six or more times a night to feed or nurse or rock a crying child, or watch at one’s bedside to see if he or she has a fever. And in the morning, at the same time each day, one of the two, or both of them, having taken the child to a grandparent or to the nursery, would rush to work in time to clock in, come rain or shine, good health or sickness. Then I said to myself: if we do not do something about it, we are in grave danger here! Our lifestyle, unless it is supported by a genuine observance of the Rule and by a certain rigour in its schedule and customs, is in danger of becoming a rose-water existence which will eventually make us uncaring. Do we have the right to feel offended when someone calls us “parasites”? We certainly do have that right, but only if we spend ourselves unreservedly for the Kingdom, if we are truly “united to the Lord without distractions.” Otherwise, we have no such right. What good parents are able to do for their children according to the flesh, the degree of self-forgetfulness they are capable of attaining in order to provide for their children’s health, studies and happiness, must be the measure of what we ought to do for our spiritual children who are our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Our example in this is the apostle Paul himself, who said he wanted to “spend what he had and to be spent” for the sake of his children in Corinth (2 Corinthians 12.15. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
This shows how useful it is tht there should be a healthy integration of charisms in the Christian community, whereby married people and celibates do not live in strict separation from one another, but in such a way that they can help and encourage one another to grow. It is not true that the proximity of other genders and of families is always necessarily a danger or a dark threat for the unmarried. It can be, if one has not yet accepted one’s vocation freely, joyfully and definitively, but this is true for a married person too. Today we are called to work pastorally in a society no longer organized along the lines of the separation of the genders, but one where both genders constantly interact and are present together in every area of life and work. We need to adapt the way we live our charism to this new situation. In no way does this mean that each person has to give up one’s own lifestyle and surroundings. In the earliest days of the Church, virgins and celibates—as we can deduce from Paul, Tertullian, Cyprian and others—were integrated into Christian homes as part of the fabric of the whole community. However, very soon, certainly by the fourth century, they felt the need for a place apart where they could organize their time, with its rhythm of silence and activity, in accordance with their own special vocation. And so monasteries were born, like those founded by St. Ambrose in and around Milan. Today new types of community are coming into being, in which families and consecrated persons live together in the same location and share the same rule of life. Together they profess and practice poverty and obedience. The one thing that distinguishes them is whether they are married or celibate. This manifests an important aspect of the Church: the fact that it is a body with “many members,” each different from the other yet moved by the same Spirit (1 Corinthians 12.12-27). #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
In this particular form of life there is a need on both sides for space and freedom. The married need it in order to attend to their children, join in their games, solve the inevitable family tensions and cultivate mutual love. Virgins need it in order to cultivate silence and to study, and to be “united to the Lord without distractions.” While respecting the lifestyles of each, there are many ways in which married people and celibates can be spiritually united within a community. I once attended a meeting of the clergy and pastoral councils of a local Church and I remember the spiritual boost, the joy an the unity caused by the reading of a letter from the cloistered nuns of a convent in the same diocese, by which they showed they were present at the meeting, contributing to it through their prayers. Clearly the possibility of change and living at a more elevated level has always been one of the gifts of God to those who seek it. What is the key to a breakthrough in contented, happy living? It is embedded in one sentence: “The love of God…dwells in the hearts of the people.” When the love of God sets the tone for our own lives, for our relationships to each other and ultimately our feeling for all humankind, then old distinctions, limiting labels, and artificial divisions begin to pass away, and peace increases. Of course, we are speaking here of the first great commandment given to the human family—to love God wholeheartedly, without reservation or compromise, tht is, with all our heart, might, mind, and strength. This love of God is the first great commandment in the Universe. However, the first great truth in the Universe is that God loves us exactly that way—wholeheartedly, without reservation or compromise, with all His heart, might, mind, and strength. #RandolpHarris 6 of 20
When those majestic forces from God’s heart and ours meet without restraint, there is a veritable explosion of spiritual, moral power. Fathers of the church and actualized Christians, who were seekers after spirituality and for whom celibacy was an ongoing test of their commitment devoted their entire lives to their own salvation. However, until the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven, what about everyone else’s soul? Who would teach, guide, scold, punish, and condemn sinning humanity? For the vast majority of humankind, priests are needed. Lifetime celibacy was, as we seen, a primarily Christian reoccupation. However, some people took false vows of celibacy to protect their jobs, then contrived, in unpriestly stealth, to creep into another person’s bed at night and prayed—if they dared—that no children would arrive to give the lie to the supposedly chaste marital arrangement. However, what underlay the mammoth battle over clerical celibacy? Foremost was the conviction that celibacy was a fundamental component of “good” Christianity. The Church Fathers strongly influenced this perception, reaching a wide, receptive audience through their writings, their preaching, and their teaching. They set personal examples as well, for most were unmarried celibates. In or survey of their theology, we saw how they evoked the Scriptures as proof of their arguments, quoting the words of the apostles and of Christ, and the Old Testament tale of Adam and Eve, as irrefutable evidence. One major consequence of all these theological, spiritual, and political contortions was that, increasingly, lay Christians adopted celibacy, so tht a core of many communities lived as spiritually pure a life as the Fathers of St. Augustine could have. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Often, they put professional religious to shame, and during the periods of widespread “lapsing” and apostasy in monasteries and women’s cloisters, these chaste and committed Christians shone—metaphorically, at least—with the pristine glow of a guiding star. However, some Christians argued strongly against clerical celibacy on the grounds that it was too difficult for most men. Yet, the growing wealth of monasteries, other cloisters, and the Church in general was another important reason to implant clerical celibacy. Bachelors leave no heirs, so would not be tempted to divvy up the property they administered, which would pass intact to the next generation of church men. They also suspected that unmarried candidates would be favoured in the Church, and that celibacy would be a good career move. Over the years, the celibacy campaign pressed on. In 401, priests at carthage were required to swear an oath of celibacy, the first-ever instance of this. Churchwide, a priest’s private life was now—theoretically—heavily monitored. His wife had to be virginal at the time of marriage and remain so forever. She could not share his bedroom, much less his bed. Instead, she passed her nights elsewhere, with a chaperone, while he lay with other clerics. Should her husband die, the widowed virgin was not permitted to have another go at marriage. A later edict went further: married clergymen had to leave their wives at their ordination. However, consider not the highborn clerics with access to fortunes but the lowly priests who constituted the greatest part of the clerical corpus. Material life in the postclassical West was so brutishly difficult that, while it also drove some unreligious men into ostensibly celibate monasteries as havens from hunger, it drove some sincere priests to marry as a form of economic survival. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Alongside the children they produced, wives could cultivate the parish landholdings and in other ways arrange to feed and clothe their priest husbands. More ambitions priests contrived to marry women with dowries, property, or small business, even if the latter consumed so much of the couple’s time that the business of religion was secondary to the exigencies of commerce. Some tattling, of course, was justified, particularly when priests and bishops fathered children. The great fear, entirely vindicated by subsequent events, was that the clerics would then use Church property as a family business, a personal legacy to provide for their sons and daughters. Expecting them to live with their wives “as if they were not wives” assumed as well that they would manage their church’s possessions as if they were men who had no possession, which was literally the case. Informing on priests and bishops who flouted Church policy with even a single infant was not motivated by personal spite but by a grave concern for the material future of the Christian community. Defiantly uncelibate clergymen were harassed and some lost their jobs, while the covertly uncelibate must have exercised discretion. In 1171, the abbot-elect of St. Augustine at Canterbury fathered seventeen children in a single village, but this was a puny production compared to a twelfth-century bishop of Liege who was unseated because he had sired sixty-five. The most ludicrous, later-century case was Pope Innocent VIII, a proud father who publicly acknowledged his brood of “bastards” and was then forgiven because he had been honest. Martin Luther believed strongly that God bestowed the gift of celibacy on some people. “This was Christ’s way,” he wrote in explanation of celibacy. Martin Luther’s views on celibacy, like St. Augustine’s and the earliest Church Fathers’, have had a profound doctrinal effect on Christian life. However, the agreed that celibacy should never be imposed nor pledged rashly by people, lay or religious, unable to fulfill their commitment. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
A family-of-origin pattern every bit as dominant as abuse in the mental health literature is an absolute corrosive combination of parenting behaviours: parental overinvolvement or overprotectiveness coupled with lack of parental care. When parents are overly intrusive in the lives of their children, but at the same time emotionally distant, there is a high potential for serious psychosocial consequences that can include depression, eating disorders, schizophrenia, personality disorders, and social anxiety. The ubiquity of this parenting pattern in the mental health literature is as remarkable as the range of problems with which it appears to be associated. This pattern of parenting may stem from serious problems with boundary regulations and ambivalence about parenthood. Overinvolvement and overprotection reflect a form of boundary dysregulation that may adversely affect the child’s ego development and sense of self in relation to other people. A person exposed to parental overinvolvement may form either unrealistic expectations for care that simply cannot be met during later adulthood, or preoccupation with fear of interpersonal intrusion. In either case, relational problems are likely to follow, contributing to any of a variety of psychological symptoms. A lack of parental care reflects a parent’s ambivalence about or rejection of one’s role. Even young children have an extraordinary aptitude for detecting acceptance or rejection from a caregiver. A lack of parental care sends messages such as “You are not worthy,” and “I do not value my relationship with you” to a child. When this is coupled with overinvolvement, a child’s (or even an adult’s) ability to make sense of these interpersonal experiences may be taxed beyond its limits. The bewilderment, confusion, self-blame, and damaged self-esteem produced by such childhood experiences surely contributes to later psychosocial problems. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
One of the primary means by which children learn attitudes and behaviour is modeling. No agents are more readily available and credible than parents. Many of the behaviours and cognitions that constitute mental disorders may in fact be socially learned. Parental modeling of dysfunctional attitudes and behaviours has been implicated in such problems as social anxiety, eating disorders, alcoholism and other substance use problems, somatoform disorders, and psychogenic dysfunctions in pleasures of the flesh. In all cases, evidence indicates that children may learn maladaptive behaviours and cognitions that later come back to cause them substantial distress in their adult lives. Critics who are sympathetic to the biological paradigm might prefer to explain parent-child similarities in psychological symptoms with a genetic hypothesis. Indeed, it is difficult to disentangle the effects of genes and the social environment, as they come from the same source—the family of origin. However, it is now becoming clear that genes can only explain a portion of this concordance. Furthermore, such problems as somatoform disorders and psychogenic sexual dysfunctions are at least assumed, by definition, to have nonbiological bases (id est, if such a problem could be explained by biological factors, a person could not receive the diagnosis). In such cases, it appears that people learn the attitudes and behaviours underlying these problems through parental modeling, at least in part. The effects of family processes on offspring do not end with adulthood. In reality, many adult psychiatric patients still reside in their families of origin. Particularly among the more profoundly affected individuals, such as those with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, independent lives outside of their families of origin may simply be unattainable because of problems with employment, maintaining stable relationships, managing finances, and so on. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
For such people, caustic family processes can still devastate psychological well-being, and foreclose the possibility of a complete recovery and functional independent life. When adult patients reside in households with a great deal of expressed emotion (EE), negative affective style (AS), and communication deviance (CD), symptoms become aggravated and relapses becomes accelerated. EE and negative AS reflect a critical and overinvolved orientation between a parent and a child. These family processes have been implicated in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and eating disorders. Even many adults are still sensitive and susceptible to the ill effects of parental criticism. Throughout the animal kingdom, parents either nurture their offspring or simply leave them alone. Aside from humans, it is difficult to locate species in which some patents actively meddle with or torment their young during critical periods of psychosocial development. However, many parents may (albeit subtly and with their best intentions) aggravate their children’s mental health through criticism and overinvolvement, even into stages of adulthood. Some parents also communicate with their family members in ways that are peculiar, splintered, and difficult to grasp. This may create a bizarre template for the construal of social interaction that makes rewarding socialization with other people a near-impossibility, in the same way that extreme isolation or neglect can permanently mar the capacity for interpersonal relations. For most people, interpersonal and psychological development launched and guided by the family. When normal family processes such a nurturance, education, and self-esteem support go awry, psychological distress often follows. Even well into adulthood, the family of origin has a powerful impact on its offspring’s psychological health or illness. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Unfortunately, for many people, their means of coping with disordered family processes (exempli gratia, substance misuse, binge eating, somatization, and dissociation) are themselves maladaptive and abrasive to mental health. I remember a spring night in a school auditorium, during the rehearsal of a play. I am thirteen. I am weary of the farce, weary of the silliness of the cast, of our endless horseplay, mindlessness. A scene in which I have no part is being rehearsed; I stand in an open door at the rare of the dark and empty hall. A storm is under way. The door is on the lee of the building, and I step out under the overhang. The rain swirls and beats. Lightning reveals a familiar schoolyard in a ghostly light. I feel a sudden poignancy. Images strike in my mind. The wind is the scream of a lost spirit, searching the Earth and finding no good, recalling old bereavements, lashing the land with tears. Consciousness leaves my body, moves out in time and space. I undergo an expanding awareness of self, of separateness, of time flowing through me, bearing me on, knowing I have a chance, the one chance all of us have, the chance of a life, knowing a time will come when nothing lies ahead and everything lies behind, and hoping I can then look back and feel it well spent. How, in the light of fixed stars, should one live? So begins the hunger for meaning. Is the scheme of things the creation of humans? A charismatic leader who achieves a new vision of lice secures a following? Did Christ invent Christianity? I think not. He created disorder, led a rabble, was an irritant to existing schemes of things. The scheme of things which is Christianity, of which His teachings are the nucleus, was the creation of many people over a span much longer than His life. Indeed, by the time it could have been called Christianity it has taken on a character He would have repudiated. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
A scheme of things is a social creation, something offered to the individual by society as a system of significance. One’s ambition may be secret, but the pattern of meanings that makes possible the ambition and within which it may be realized is social. Even if one’s entire hope of meaning in life hinges on acquiring a complete set of American stamps, that vision still is social, depends upon others being similarly engaged; for such an endeavour could mean nothing in a World without stamp collecting. When a society offers at its apex a scheme of things, inclusive and integrative of all subordinate orientations, and when that scheme by virtue of being generally accepted as true holds great authority, then that society is unified and cohesive, is an organism. Every leader seeks to embody such a scheme of things, and charismatically to make it even more powerfully appealing, binding on the loyalties of all. When society offers, at the top, contending schemes, none of compelling authority, that society is fragmented. Nevertheless, we see groups of boys and young men disaffected from the dominant society. The young men are Angry and Beat. The boys are Juvenile Delinquents. These groups are not small, and they will grow larger. Certainly they are suffering. Demonstrably they are not getting enough out of our wealth and civilization. They are not growing up to full capacity. They are failing to assimilate much of the culture. As was predictable, most of the authorities and all of the public spokesmen explain it by saying there has been a failure of socialization. They say that background conditions have interrupted socialization and must be improved. And, not enough effort has been made to guarantee belonging, there must be a better bait or punishment. However, perhaps there has not been a failure of communication. Perhaps the social message has been communicated clearly to the young men and is unacceptable. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
However, socialization to what? to what dominant society and available culture? Is the harmonious organization to which the young are inadequately socialized, perhaps against human nature, or not worthy of human nature, and therefore there is difficulty in growing up? If this is so, the disaffection of the young is profound and it will not be finally remediable by better techniques of socializing. Instead, there will have to be changes in our society and its culture, so as to meet the appetites and capacities of human nature, in order to grow up. Growth, like any ongoing function, requires adequate objects in the environment to meet the needs and capacities of the growing child boy, young, and young man, until he can better choose and make his own environment. It is not a “psychological” question of poor influences and bad attitudes, but an objective question of real opportunities for worthwhile experience. It makes no difference whether the growth is normal or distorted, only real objects will finish the experience. (Even in the psychotherapy of adults one finds that many a stubborn symptom vanishes if there is a real change in the vocational and sexual opportunities, so that the symptoms are no longer needed.) It is here that the theory of belonging and socializing breaks down miserably. For it can be shown—I intended to show—that with all the harmonious belonging and all the tidying up background conditions that you please, our abundant society is at present simply deficit in many of the most elementary objective opportunities and worthwhile goals that could make growing up possible. It is lacking in enough man’s work. It is lacking in honest public speech, and people are not taken seriously. It is lacking in the opportunity to be useful. It thwarts aptitude and creates stupidity. It corrupts ingenuous patriotism. It corrupts the fine arts. It shackles science. It dampens animal ardour. It discourages the religious convictions of Justification and vocation and it dims the sense that there is a Creation It has no honour. It has no community. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Just look at that list There is nothing in it that is surprising, in either the small letters or the capitals. I have nothing subtle or novel to say in this report; these are the things that everybody knows. And nevertheless the leaders of the church says, “We must give young men a sense of belonging.” Thwarted, or starved, in the important objects proper to young capacities, the boys and young men naturally find or invent deviant objects for themselves; this is the beautiful shaping power of our human nature. Their choices and inventions are rarely charming, usually stupid, and often disastrous; we cannot expect average kids to deviate with genius. However, on the other hand, the young men who conform to the dominate society become for the most part apathetic, disappointed, cynical, and wasted. (I say the “young men and boys” rather than the “young people” because the problems I want to discus in this report belong primarily, in our society, to the boys: how to be useful and make something of oneself. A girl does not have to, she is not expected to, “make something” of herself. Her career does not have to be self-justifying, for she will have children, which is absolutely self-justifying, like any other natural or creative act. With this background, it is less important, for instance, what job an average young woman works at till she is married. The quest for the glamour job is given at least a little substance by its relation to a “better” marriage. Correspondingly, our “youth troubles” are boys’ troubles—female delinquency is sexual: “incorrigibility” and unmarried pregnancy. Yet as every woman knows, for if the body do not grow to be men, where shall the women find men? If the husband is running the rat race of the organized system, there is not much father for the children.) “A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed,” reports Proverbs 11.25. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
There reason many people are not growing is because they are not sowing. They are living self-centered lives. Unless they change their focus and start reaching out to others, they will probably remain in a depressed condition, emotionally, financially, socially, and spiritually. The Scripture says, “Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap,” reports Galatians 6.7. All through the Christian Bible, we find the principle of sowing and reaping. Just as if one hopes to reap the harvest, a famer must plant some seeds, we, too, must plant some good seeds in the fields of our families, careers, businesses, and personal relationship. What if the farmer decided that he did not really feel like planting, that he was tired, so he “felt led” to sit around and hope the harvest would come in? He would be waiting around his whole life! No, he must get the seed in the ground. That is the principle God established. In the same way, if we want to reap good things, we, too, must show some good seeds. Notice, we reap what we sow. If you want to reap happiness, you have to sow some “happiness” seeds by making other people happy. If you want to reap financial blessings, you must sow financial seeds in the lives of others. If you want to reap friendships, you should sow a seed and be a friend. Some people say, “I have a lot of problems of my own. I do not are about sowing seeds. I want to know how I can get out of my mess.” This is how you can get out of your mess. “If you want God to solve your problems, help solve somebody else’s problem. In biblical times, great famine struck the land of Canaan. People did not have any food or water, and they were in desperate need. So Isaac did something that people without insight may have thought rather odd: “In the middle of that famine, Isaac sowed a seed in the land. And in that same year he received one hundred times what he planted and the Lord rewarded him greatly,” reports Genesis 26.12. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
In his time of need, Isaac did not wait around, expecting someone else to come to his rescue. No, he acted in faith. He rose up in the midst of that famine and sowed a seed. God supernaturally multiplied that seed, and it brough him out of his need. Maybe you are in some sort of famine today. It could be a financial famine, or maybe you are simply famished for friends. It is possible you need a physical healing. Perhaps you need peace in your home. Whatever the need, one of the best things you can do is to get your mind off yourself and help meet someone else’s need. Sow some seeds of happiness. That is the way to receive a huge harvest. The Bible says, “In times of difficulty, trust in the Lord and do good,” reports Psalm 37.1-3. It is not enough to say, “God I trust You. know You are going to meet all my needs.” That is like the farmer not planting any seeds and expecting a fabulous harvest. Scripture says there are two things we must do in times of trouble. First, we must trust in the Lord: and second, we must go out and do something good. Go out and sow some seed. If you need a financial miracle, go by someone a cup of coffee tomorrow morning, or give a little extra in the offering at church. If you do not have any money, do some physical work for somebody; mow somebody’s lawn, pull some weeds, wash their windows. Make someone a pie. Do something to get some seed in the ground. If you are lacking in friends, do not sit at home alone month after month, feeling sorry for yourself. When you make other people happy, God will make sure that your life is filled with joy. We need to be more seed-oriented than need-oriented. In your time of need, do not sit around thinking about what you lack. Think about what kind of seed you can sow to get yourself out of that need. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
My dear Devout, to avoid those dreary discussions, those shaggy syllogisms, about the inner workings of this most profound Sacrament. Why? Because they come up with such funny conclusions. And frankly, because they tend to induce doubt rather than increase faith. Which is another way of saying their conclusions may be curiouser, but are the necessarily seriouser? A good text for this might come from Proverbs: “The person who undertakes an intellectual investigation of Majesty may well find it only to be blinded by its glory,” reports Proverbs 3.21, 25.27. Another way of putting it is that the Godhead has more modes of operation than Humankind has of intellection. Nonetheless, always tolerable is the pious and humble inquiry to the Truth. It is prepared to learn something and strives to entertain the sane and sound opinions of the Fathers. Blessed is the simplicity that can free itself from the intellectual entanglements of University thinking and forge ahead down Faith’s plain and firm path, where every paver’s a command or a commandment. All of which is another way of saying that many Devouts in higher studies—that is to say, as Jesus son of Sirach has said, studies beyond one’s competence (3.22)—lose their devotion while striving too hard to succeed intellectually. What is needed in life, My dear friend, is faith as well as sincerity. Not depth or height, nor breadth or sweep of intellect. Ans certainly not mastery of the Mysteries of God. If you do not come to grips with the World within, how do you expect to comprehend the World without? Let God be your tutor and give your senses a good schooling in faith. Then the light of knowledge will come. Perhaps not the full flood, but certainly flickering enough for you to complete your studies without losing your sight. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
Dear Lord in Have, today I choose to focus on the needs of others rather than my own I believe that as I plant seeds of goodness in other people’s lives, You will do something similar in my own life. Thank You, Father, for the blessings that are coming! Awakening in a moment of peace, I give thanks to the source of all peace as I set forth into the day. The beautiful birds sing with new voices and I listen with new ears and give thanks nearby. The flower called Angels’ Trumpet blows in the breeze and I give thanks. My feet touch the beautiful emerald green grass, still wet with the morning’s dew, and I give thanks, both to my mother Earth, for sustaining my steps, and to the seas, cycling once again to bring forth new life. The dewdrops become jewelled with the morning’s sun-fire and I give thanks. When the vision is clear, you can see forever. In this moment, each moment, I give thanks. Please send dew and rain for a blessing upon the Earth. Please satisfy us out of Thy bounty, O Lord. Do Thou bless this year, that it be for us a year of abundance. Praised by Thou, O Lord, who doest bless the years. Sound the great Shofar proclaiming our freedom. Raise the banner to assemble our exiles, and gather us together from the four corners of the Earth. Blessed art Thou, O God who wilt gather the dispersed of Thy people America. Restore our judges as of yore, and our consellors as aforetime, and thus remove from us grief and suffering. Reign Thou over us, O Lord, Thou alone in lovingkindness and mercy and vindicate us in judgment. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, Thou King, who lovest righteousness and judgement. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, the King of judgment. You have been given a glimpse of the goal. Now you must strive to attain that goal. The glimpse itself has enable you to understand the consciousness and the characteristics to strive for. Both are so subtle that words merely hint at them and may be meaningless. In receiving an experience beyond words, you have therefore been so fortunate as to be favoured with the Overself’s Grace. The momentary feeling of peace one experienced may be an intimation of the still greater peace one may know if one takes the trouble to purse the opportunity of developing it through the Quest. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
Cresleigh Homes
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The World is in for an Eyeopener–We are Tapping a Source of Power that is Undefeatable!
The great secret to success is commitment and motivation from with. Winners make goals because they consider how hard it is to change oneself. Some celibate people live alone, insisting that only solitude could properly test them and also preserve them from the great majority, however, congregate in small bands under the spiritual guidance of such holy humans as Anthony the hermit and Pachomius the cenobite, the founders of Christian monasticism. Life is a celibate community, no matter how small and haphazardly organized, centers on the spiritual authority of an Old Man. The father, wrestling with his demons, could only hope to elude them if he opened his heart to the Old Man. For nothing displeases the demon of fornication more than to reveal his works, and nothing gives him greater pleasure than to keep one’s thoughts to oneself. The heart is where the body and soul converge, the point at which the subconscious is linked with conscious and the supraconscious, and the human with the divine. Christian monasticism is the revolutionary movement that ultimately queries the very existence of nonmonastic life: Could true Christians exist outside the chaste, austere, and otherworldly precincts of these great, walled-in monasteries in clusters of cells built into haven communities and considered fairy-tale towns. Could the outside World, with its sinful distractions, rampant corruption, and errant rulers, tolerate citizens loyal and accountable only to their God? Should all Christians renounce the World and flee to these havens? Of course, monasticism fostered Christians, its logical theological extensions, which develop from mature reflections on the nature and working of monasteries. It was not the fathers wandering up and down the Egyptian desert or tucked away in caves, sand dunes, mountainside huts, and other hermitages who inspired monasteries. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
That honour of establishing these communities goes to the cenobites, who were drawn to a spiritual leader and settled in close proximity to hum. These early Christian pioneer Desert Fathers in their improvised cells became known as monachos—from the Greek word monos, one who lives alone, though they were quite different from the later fathers, who belonged to more structured establishments. To save your souls you must bring them together by penetrating into the inner depts of a Christian’s heart. When that heart is pure, the Invisible God becomes a mirror. To achieve that purity in the collectively, some modern people form haven communities with McMansions, and made their children go to church and focus on education and work ethic. A legion of rules governed their conduct. Celibacy was the key precept, and man of the rules were designed to safeguard it. The monastic silence served to nip deepening, interpersonal relationships in the bud, as well as to promote self-reflection and ambulatory prayer. Other rules quite clearly related to concerns about celibacy, for away from women, some men turned to each other. However, in these Precepts, spelled out correctly was chaste and brotherly behaviour. First of all, these humans were not supposed to tempt each other. They were expected therefore, to observe the following niceties: covering their knees when sitting together; remembering not to hike their tunics too high when bending over doing laundry; keeping eyes lowered and avoiding direct glances at other brothers, at work and even during the silent meals; never borrowing from or lending to each other; never doing or requesting a brotherly favour; never performing such intimacies as removing a thorn from another person’s foot or bathing or oiling one another. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
There was also to never contrive to be alone with another brother either in a cell, on sleeping mats on the terraces, in a boat, or riding in a transportation machine; never talking to each other in the dark; never holding hands; always maintaining an arm’s length distance between each other; abstaining from joining in the games and laughter of children raised in the community; never locking the cell door; and always knocking before entering a cell. These rules had nothing to do with the ascetic regime that underlay monastery’s existence. They dealt specifically with the causes of erotic temptations and lapses in pleasures of the flesh, so celibacy could reign, at all costs. The ascetic regimen was also strict, though not as severe as among the fathers. Fasting was the daily habit, with a recommended single, simple meal. Bread, with salt, was the main stable. Celibates who could not wait it out till the setting sun summoned them to the day’s repast were permitted to eat twice, the first time in early afternoon. However, they did not receive more rations. The usual amount was merely divided into two portions. The timing of the evening meal permitted the brothers to sleep without the camps that otherwise attacked their shrunken, rumbling stomachs. In wintertime, some are only allowed to eat every third day. This near-starvation diet, of course, was a principal tool in the struggle to maintain chastity in the pleasures of the flesh by dampening all desires for pleasures of the flesh. It is one of the reason anorexic women tend to be non-sexual. It makes sense, they do not have mother bearing hips and many times their bodies cannot carry a baby due to its small size and lack of nutrients. Celibates are supposed to have nothing whatever to do with the sensual appetites. Otherwise how would one differ from men living in the World? In fact, hungry celibates are not substantially hungrier than their nonreligious compatriots. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
When wellborn novices sit down to their first meal in a monastery, the shock to their systems is considerable, whereas those from humbler circumstances often find the fare tolerably generous. A former senator who lamented his new regime to a shepherd was told that the portions sounded ampler, and the quality finer, than anything in his listener’s experience. In a stratified society where rich and poor live wildly disparate lives, the senator-and-shepherd syndrome is common, so much so that celibates come to suspect that economic hardships rather than religious vocations or idealism drives newcomers to seek admission to the monasteries. Some monasteries even initiate probationary periods to eliminate such applicants. Despite the minimalist lifestyle, the rigid regulations, and the spiritual challenges of the monastery, some celibates still have terrible trouble subduing their desires for pleasures of the flesh. So many refused to allow them to have wine or be around anyone they may find attractive. As a result, some turned to bestiality. I think a lot of it has to do with a person’s upbringing and focus. Someone who is brought up not to be sexual and decided they want to be celibate will have an easier time avoiding pleasures of the flesh, especially if they exercise. Many sports players, for example, who may not be celibate tend to not desire pleasures of the flesh because they release that energy through intense exercise. Conversely, people who have loins of virility and are religions, but have to become celibate may behave like a drug addict with an addiction who is around a stimulant, when they are around a man, woman, or child. Also, the Catholic church received a bad reputation because it was sabotaged by perverts who wanted to demonize celibacy to make people treat true celibates like criminals in an effort to normalize “free love.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
Sexual abuse has been recorded on camera and going on forever in Hollywood, but yet only the Catholic church and Mormon Church are being demonized, while people totally overlook all the credible abuse stories that happen in Hollywood. Typically is a female victim has an injured cervix or a male or a female has anything torn or bleeding, medical experts say those are typically signs of physically forced pleasures of the flesh because when a woman is into it, the cervix has a way to make sure it does not get damaged, and if anything is painful and there are signs of abuse, it does not seem like someone would consent to that. In our day, celibacy or virginity has become an institution in the Church. As far as society is concerned, it is a “state,” and in fact our identification cards say: Civil Status—“bachelor,” “single,” or “unmarried.” So, it is a state now regulated by laws. Within the Church celibacy is the subject of endless debate (should it, for example, be maintained or abolished for priests, and so on). Outside it, it has been viewed with suspicion and sometimes with pity by many representatives of the so-called human sciences, such as psychology and sociology. One of these—to quote the most famous of all—said that, “In our age, neurosis has taken the place of the convent, which used to be the refuge of all who had been let down by life or who felt too weak to face it.” According to this view, virginity and celibacy were the ancient equivalent of modern neurosis! In such an atmosphere it is very likely that the words “celibacy” and “virginity” immediately bring to mind the idea of an unresolved problem, a “burning issue,” rather than an ideal, a divine “innovation” by Christ Himself. There is a danger of losing sight of essentials and concentrating on accidental matters which are merely side-issues. What is needed, therefore, is a change of mind, a conversion, and this can only happen by the work of the Holy Spirit. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
The Holy Spirit does not do new things, but makes new things. One renews persons and institutions, even including celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom and virginity for love of the Lord. They Holy Spirit is moving powerfully in the Church, giving everything in it a new authenticity and evangelical splendour. I never grow tired of quoting the words of John Paul II, written on the occasion of the sixteenth centenary of the ecumenical Council of Constantinople (381 A.D.), which proclaimed the divinity of the Holy Spirit “The entire work of renewal in the Church, which Vatican II so providentially proposed and initiated cannot be fulfilled except in the Holy Spirit, that is, with the help of God’s strength and God’s light.” What actually is virginity, either for men or for women? Starting with a word from St. Paul, which we commented on earlier (“Regard those who are unmarried, I have no directions from the Lord, but I give my own opinion,” reports 1 Corinthians 7.25, the preference in the past was for virginity—like voluntary poverty and obedience—to be viewed and explained in terms of “evangelical counsels.” As such, they were different from “precepts,” such as conjugal fidelity for example. I believe that whatever could be said and understood about virginity using such a concept has been amply illustrated already, and there is very little new to add to the clear synthesis St. Thomas makes in His Summa Theologica. This is why it may perhaps be useful for us to try to see what new understanding can be derived by starting from another category the Apostle uses, in the same context, to define marriage and virginity: the category of a charism. “All,” he says, “have their own gift (charism) from God, one of one sort, another of a different kind,” reports 1 Corinthians 7.7. In other words, married people have their charism and virgins have theirs. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
Besides, the idea of a “gift” is implicit in the words Jesus Himself uses to institute celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom, when He says that not everyone can understand this proposal, but only those to who it is granted (Matthew 19.11). If the glimpse is intermittent, let one not mourn the fact but remember that one was fortunate enough to get it. If the glimpse becomes a continuous thing, one will accept if humbly because of its very mysteriousness to oneself. No glimpse is ever full and complete. If it were, the person experiencing it would be unable to all into spiritual ignorance again. From this we may understand that however wonderful a glimpse of the Overself may be, it is still only a cloudy reflection of the real thing. This illumination does not make one an adept at the end of one’s path. One is a seeker still, albeit a highly advance seeker. These experiences are only foretastes of the farthest one which lies at the end of this quest, and only limited partial tastes at that. The mystical feeling of divine presence and the direct revelation of divine truth for which they long may come but, unless they are among the rare exceptions, will also wane and finally get lost. In most cases the Glimpse is but transitory. Dorje, “the Heavenly lightening,” is a Himalayan and trans-Himalayan symbol both of the Glimpse and of the final illumination. These glimpses may be looked upon as brief, minor illuminations leading to the final major illumination that will quash the ego’s rule forever. These are the ultimate phenomena—that is, appearances and experiences—before realization. They differ at different times, or with different person, but that is because they come into being as human reactions, as the self’s final point of view before its own dissolution. In spite of itself the ego is drawn more and more to the spiritual grandeur revealed by these glimpses. Its ties to selfishness, animality, and materiality are loosened. Finally it comes to see that it is standing in its own way and light and then lets itself be effaced. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
Although the universal and particular exist in every genus, nevertheless, in a certain special way, the individual belongs to the genus of substance. For substance is individualized by itself, whereas the accidents are individualized by the subject, which is the substance; since this particular whiteness is called “this,” because it exists in this particular subject. Ans so it is reasonable that the individuals of the genus substance should have a special name of their own; for they are called “hypostases,” of substances. Further still, in a more special and perfect way, the particular and the individual are found in the rational substances which have dominion over their own actions; and which are not only made to act, like others; but which can act of themselves; for actions belong to singulars. Therefore also the individuals of the rational nature have special name even among other substances; and this name is “person.” Thus the term “individual substance” is placed in the definition of person, as signifying the singular in the genus of substance; and the term “rational nature” is added, as signifying the singular in rational substances. The human nature in Christ is not a person, since it is assumed by a greater—that is, by the Word of God. It is, however, better to say that substance is here taken in a general sense, as divided into first and second, and when “individual” is added, it is restricted to the first substance. With devotion and love, with heart and fevour, humans must desire to receive Jesus Christ, our Lord, just as many of the Saints and Devouts before this time desire to receive Jesus in Holy Communion. Holiness of life is their chiefest concern, and they fanned the flame of devotion in the most ardent way. Our God, Love Eternal, Good Entire, Felicity Interminable. We want to receive You with more desire and reverence than any of the Saints before! #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
We know we are all unworthy to have these sentiments of devotion, yet we offer then to You as if we were the only ones every to have these flaming desires. Whatever our pious if pitiful mind conceives, all these we put in front of You and offer up to You with veneration and fervour We burningly desire to hold nothing bac for ourselves, not even our dearest possessions. O Lord, our God, our Creator, and our Redeemer, we desire to receive You today with affection, reverence, praise, and honour; with faith, hope, and purity. Our model is Your Most Holy Mother, the glorious Virgin Mary. When the Angel informed her of the mystery of the Incarnation, she replied in a humble and devout manner: “That is why I am, a handmaid of the Lord’s. If there is more to it than that, then so be it.” That is how the Evangelist Luke recorded it (1.38). On the foundation of emotional and spiritual freedom, the actualizing Christian needs to build bridges to others. Love of self and love of others are meant to run parallel. The harmonious functioning of the individual and society depends upon: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Not less, but also not more. Only when one learns to strike the balance between egoism and altruism—between identification with one’s own and other people’s requirements—will one find peace of mind. Giving and taking are both vital parts of loving in an actualizing manner. We do not grow by either giving all the time or receiving all the time. Both are needed for balanced relationships with others. This means both being able to stand on our own feet and reaching out to others. It means being able to handle a certain degree of aloneness and desiring the company of others. It means having a sense of personal power and choosing to bare our deepest heart in love with others. As actualizing Christians, we should be humble enough to ask for and receive help when it is needed. At the same time, we should be able to handle many things for ourselves. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
We should learn to take responsibility for our own fulfillment, yet be able to look beyond ourselves and, whenever possible, give freely to meet the needs of others. We go though life becoming both more capable and more aware of our limitations and needs. This is the pathway of genuine interdependence, a crucial dynamic of actualizing love. The power of the Highest shall be manifest in the spoken Word. Then humans shall speak My Word boldly and believe what they say will come to pass. It will be even as though I said it. For when you mix faith with your words, it is as though I said it, for your breathe spirit life into the words that you speak. Your words shall flow forth, even as the words of Jesus when He spoke for He said, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, they are life. The flesh profiteth nothing, but the words that I speak they are spirit, they are life.” These words have come before, but humans turned a deaf ear to them. However, these are the days that I am raising up a new generation of people. In My Word I have said that you do not put new premium cranberry juice in old bottles lest it break the bottles. You put new premium cranberry juice in new bottles that they will both be preserved. When the human spirit is reborn, the Spirit of God releases creative ability within and it becomes for new bottle that will preserve the new premium cranberry juice. The rebirth shall come to the front in this generation and ye shall observe the mighty works of God in it. I have chosen a people and I shall bring them to a land and they shall dominate it. They shall have dominion. For I am coming for a Church that is without spot or wrinkle. I am coming for a Church that is not weak. I am coming for a Church that is victorious. I am coming, and ye shall see the manifestation of My power, for I have chosen the Church to reveal the wisdom of God to the generations and to the principalities and powers. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
When humans shall conform to the Word of the living God, then the power of the Highest shall flow unhindered out of their voices. Out of their mouths shall flow spirit words that will control the forces that have controlled them in days past. They will proclaim, “The enemy is defeated” and one shall be defeated. For I say that the battle is the Lord’s and victory is yours. Learn to walk in victory, saith the Lord. Thank God for sharing this so others could hear it. I hear it. I have been hearing it in my spirit for months. The World is in for an eyeopener in these last days. We are tapping a source of power that is not capable of being defeated. The scheme of things is a system of order. Beginning as our view of the World, it finally becomes our World. We live within the space defined by its coordinates. It is self-evidently true, is accepted so naturally and automatically that one is not aware of an act of acceptance having taken place. It comes with our mother’s milk, is chanted in school, proclaimed from the White House, insinuated by television, validated at Princeton. Like the air we breathe, the scheme of things disappears, becomes simply reality, becomes, as far as we can tell, the way things are. It is the lie necessary to life. The World as it exists beyond that scheme becomes vague, irrelevant, largely unperceived, finally nonexistent. As son as the scheme of things is questioned, it has lost its capacity to redeem. “What then,” Camus writes, “is that incalculable feeling that deprives the mind of the sleep necessary to life? World that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar World. However, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, humans feel an alien, a stranger.” An examination of the scientific literature on interpersonal processes and mental health problems shows that mental illness and interpersonal illness are inseparable concepts. There are cases of psychological disorders whose origins clearly lie in problematic interpersonal relationships. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
At the same time, it is apparent that many and perhaps most forms of psychopathology have serious interpersonal ramifications that are unfortunately negative in nature. People with psychological problems, of whatever specific type, will often find that their personal relationships are not what they were during their premorbid state. This deterioration of interpersonal well-being undoubtedly complicates the course of psychosocial problems, and thus afflicted individuals often wind up in a vicious cycle of interpersonal and psychological problems that perpetuate each other. The analysis of interpersonal issues in mental health problems has thus far been presented in the context of particular problems. At this juncture, it is instructive to move up a level of abstraction to identify interpersonal motifs that cut across multiple mental health problems. The phenomena constitute the building blocks of a more general interpersonal paradigm in mental health. One of the most fundamental, yet controversial, functions of research programs or paradigms is the stipulation of what count as data. Paradigms focus attention on phenomena of interest, and away from variables that are not central to the key assumptions embedded within the paradigm. The interpersonal paradigm was developed over many decades by a loosely organized collection of theorists and researchers. Unlike other paradigms in mental health with an identifiable starting point and scripture, the components of the interpersonal paradigm must be inferred from an analysis of what the researchers working within this tradition have identified and accepted as central constructs. For ease of reference, the interpersonal phenomena associated with various mental health problems have generally four domains of inquiry: experiences in the family or origin, occurring during early childhood as well as adulthood; experiences in the family of orientation, namely marriage and parenthood; general personal relationships, such as dating relationships, work relationships, friendships, and even interactions with strangers; and characteristic styles of interpersonal communication. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) holds that any of the four interpersonal problem areas may lead to depression and must be addressed: interpersonal loss, interpersonal role dispute, interpersonal role transition, and interpersonal deficits. Over the course of 16 sessions, IPT therapists addressed these issues. First, depressed persons may, as psychodynamic theorists suggest, be experiencing a grief rection over an interpersonal loss, the loss of an important loved one. In such cases, IPT therapist encourage clients to explore their relationships with the departed person and express any feelings of anger they may discover. Eventually clients develop new ways of remembering the lost person and also seek new relationships. Second, depressed people may find themselves in the midst of an interpersonal role dispute. Role disputes occur when two people have different expectations of their relationship and of the role each should play. IPT therapists help clients examine whatever role disputes they may be involved in and then develop ways of solving them. Depressed people may also be experiencing an interpersonal role transition, brought about by major life changes such as divorce or the birth of a child. They may feel overwhelmed by the role changes that accompany the life changes. In such cases IPT therapists help them develop the social supports and skills the new roles require. Finally, some depressed people display interpersonal deficits, such as extreme shyness, insensitivity to others’ needs, or social awkwardness, which present them from having intimate relationships. Many depressed people experienced disrupted relationships as children and have failed to establish intimate relationships as adults. IPT therapists my help them to recognize their deficits and may tach them social skills and assertiveness in order to improve their social effectiveness. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
The success rate similar to that of cognitive therapy. That is, symptoms almost totally disappear in 50 to 60 percent of clients who receive treatment. After IPT, clients not only experience a reduction of depressive symptoms but also function more effetely in their social and family interactions. Not surprisingly, IPT is considered especially useful for depressed people who are struggling with social conflicts or undergoing changes in their careers or social roles. “Abraham never wavered in believing in God’s promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God,” reports Romans 4.20. When you bless someone else, you never lose out. Even if someone takes advantage of your good nature, God will not allow your generosity to go unrewarded. For instance, when God told Abraham to pack up his family and head toward a better land, Abraham moved all his flocks, his herds, his family, and even his extended family members. They traveled for months and finally made it to their new land. After living there for a while, they discovered that the portion of land where they settled was not able to support them with enough food and water for all the people and their flocks and herds. Abraham said to his nephew Lot, “We need to split up.” He said, “You choose which part of the land you would like to have, and I will take whatever is left.” Notice how kind Abraham was to his nephew. Lot looked around and saw a beautiful valley with lush green pastures and rolling hills and ponds. He said, “Abraham, that is what I want. That is where my part of the family will settle.” Abraham said, “Fine; go and be blessed.” Abraham could have said, “Lot, you are not going to have that land. That is the best land. I have done all the work. I have led this journey. God spoke to me, not to you. I should get the first choice.” Abraham did not do that. He believed that God would make it up to him. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
However, I am sure when Abraham took one look at the land left over for him, he was disappointed nonetheless. His portion was arid, barren, desolate wasteland. Think of it; Abraham had traveled a long distance. He had gone to great effort in search of a better life for his family members. Now, because of his generosity and kind heart, he was relegated to living on the scruffy part of the land. I am sure he thought, God, why do people always take advantage of my goodness? God, why do I always get the short end of the stick? That boy Lot would not have had anything if I had not given it to him. Maybe you feel that you are the one who is doing all the giving in some situation. Perhaps you are the parent of an ungrateful child. Or the child of ungrateful parents. Maybe your former spouse is taking advantage of you in a divorce settlement. Likewise, the government could be using and abusing and breaking and bankrupting you. Possibly your company is talking about “downsizing” after you have given them the best years of your life. Perhaps you are the one who is always going the extra kilometer. You are the peacemaker in the family. Because people know you are kind, generous, and friendly, they tend to take advantage of you. However, know that everything has consequences. God sees your integrity. Nothing that you do goes unnoticed by God. He is keeping the records, and He will reward you in due time. That is what He did for Abraham. In essence, God told Abraham, “Because you treated your relative kindly, because you went the extra kilometer to do what is right, I am not going to give you a small portion of land; I am going to give you an abundant blessing. I am going to give you hundreds and hundreds of hectares of land. All that you can see is going to be yours.” Therefore, do not grow weary in well-doing. God is a more than fair God, and He sees not just what you are doing but why you are doing it. God judges our motives as well as our actions. And because you are aiming for kindness, one day God will say to you as He did to Abraham, “As far as you can see, I am going to give it to you.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
Sometimes when we are good to people and we go the extra kilometer, we have a tendency to think, I am letting people walk all over me. I am letting them take advantage of me. They are taking what rightfully belongs to me. That is when you have to say, “Nobody is taking anything from me. I am freely giving it to them. I am blessing them on purpose, knowing that God is going to make it up to me.” Today, look for an opportunity to do something extra to bless someone who does not deserve it. God will honour you for your gesture. The concept of “human nature” has had a varied political history in modern times. If we trace it, we can see the present disagreement developing. In the eighteenth century, the Age of Reason and the early Romantic Movement, the emphasis was on “human nature,” referring to humans’ naturally sympathetic sentiments, one’s communicative faculties, and unalienable dignity. (Immanuel Kant immortally thought up a philosophy to make these cohere.) Now this human nature was powerfully enlisted in revolutionary struggles against courts and classes, poverty and humiliation, and it began to invent progressive education. Human nature unmistakably demanded liberty, equality, and fraternity—and every human a philosopher and poet. As an heir of the French Revolution, Karl Marx kept much of this concept. Sympathy recurred as solidarity. Dignity and intellect were perhaps still in the future. However, he found an important new essential: humans are makers, they must use their productive nature or be miserable. This too involves a revolutionary program, to give back to humans their tools. During the course of the nineteenth century, however, “human nature” came to be associated with conservative and even reactionary politics. The later Romantics were historical minded and found humans naturally traditional and not to be uprooted. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
A few decades later, narrow interpretations of Dr. Darwin were being used to support capitalist enterprise; and racial and somatic theories were used to advance imperial and elite interests. (The emphasis was now on “nature”; the humanity became dubious.) It was during this later period that the social scientists began to be different about “human nature”; for, politically, the wanted fundamental social changes, different from those indicated by the “natural” theory of the survival of the fittest; and, scientifically, it was evident that many anthropological facts were being called natural which were overwhelmingly cultural. Most of the social scientists began to lay all their stress on political organization, to being about reform. Nevertheless, scientifically trained anarchists like Kropotkin insisted that “human nature”—which had not become mutual-aiding, knightly, and craftsmanlike—was still on the side of revolution. Since last century, especially the in 1920s and 1930s, the social scientists have found another reason for diffidence: it seems to them that “human nature” implies “not social” and refers to something prior to society, belonging to an isolated individual. They have felt that too much importance has been assigned to Individual Psychology (they were reacting to Dr. Freud) and this has stood in the way of organizing people for political reform. It is on this view, finally, that growing up is now interpreted as a process of socializing some rather indefinite kind of animal, and “socializing” is used as a synonym for teaching one the culture. Dear Lord in Heaven, thank You, Father, that nobody can take anything away from me that You are not able to restore. I will live unselfishly as a manager of all that You have given me. I will trust You, and rather than clutching what is legitimately mine, I will live with my hands and heart open to others. No one today, from the experts in the White House or the Kremlin to the proverbial human in the street, can be sure how the New World system will shake out—what new kinds of institutions will arise to provide regional or global order. However, it is possible to dispel several popular myths. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
The first of these is the myth propagated by such films as Queen of the Damned and Romeo Must Die, in which seductively beautiful villain (or Saviours) announce that the World is, or will be, divided up and run by a group of transnational corporations. In its most common form of this myth pictures a single Worldwide Energy Corporation, a single Food Corporation, a single Housing Corporation, and a single Recreation Corporation, and so forth. In a variant, each of these is seen as department of an even larger mega-corporations (Amel aka Satan and the Triad aka Hong Kong Government). Queen Akasha is simply the beautiful messenger and Kai is the tall, dark, and handsome knight in shining armour of Hong Kong Government. This simplistic image is based on straight-line extrapolations from the Second Wave trends: specialization, maximization, and centralization. The plot actually seems realistic with the pandemic surging, supply chains freezing and unable to meet demands and more products on the market than any store can make room for. These films also take into account the fantastic diversity of real life conditions, the clash of cultures, religions, and traditions in the World, the speed of change, and the historic thrust now carrying in the high-technology nations toward de-massification; it is very realistic that such needs as energy, housing, ad food can be neatly compartmentalized; when prices are so high that people cannot afford anything, they will take what you give them. Acknowledged are the fundamental changes now revolutionizing the structure and purpose of the corporation itself. These plots are based, in short, on a very relevant, Second Wave image of what a corporation is and how it is structured. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
These films depict a planet run by a single, centralized World Government. This is usually imagined as an extension of some existing institution or government—a “United Sates of the Word,” a “Planetary Proletarian State,” or simply the United Nations writ large. Again the thinking is based on simplistic extensions of Second Wave principles. However, what appears to be emerging is neither a corporation-dominated future nor a global government but a far more complex system similar to the matrix organizations we saw spring up in certain advanced industries. Rather then one or a few pyramidal global bureaucracies, we are weaving nets or matrices that mesh different kinds of organizations with common interest. This may be a good idea because the government does not care about its image as a governmental citizen. They do not reach out to human capital how have been abused and hurt by their products and try to resolve the situation. The government takes more of the role of a tyrant. “You take what I give you, and I may or may not save your life. Just know I am in control.” Whereas in the days of social media and so many competing products and corporations, businesses seem to be trying hard to provide pleasant experiences, treat people with respect, accommodate them, and educate them. Nonetheless, we may, for example, see the emergence of the next decade of an Oceans Matrix, composed not solely of nation-states but of regions, cities, corporations, environmental organizations, scientific groups, and others with an interest in the sea. As changes occur new groupings would emerge and plug into the matrix, while others would drop out. Similar organizational structures may well emerge—are, in some sense, already emerging—to deal with other issues: a Space Matrix, a Food Matrix, a Transport Matrix, and Energy Matrix, and the like, all flowing into and out of one another, overlapping and forming a messily open, rather than a neatly closed, system. In short, we are moving toward a World system composed of units densely interrelated like the neurons in a brain rather than organized like the departments of a bureaucracy. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
As this happens, we can expect a tremendous struggle to break out within the United Nations over whether that organization shall remain a “trade association of nation-states” or whether other types of units—regions, perhaps religions, even corporations or ethnic groups—should be represented in it. As nations are torn apart and restructured, as Transnational Corporations (TNCs) and other new actors move onto the global scene, as instabilities and the threats of war erupt, we shall be called upon to invent wholly new political forms or “containers” to bring a semblance of order to the World—a World in which the nation-state has become, for many purposes, a dangerous anachronism. It is not enough for an assembled people to have once determined the constitution of the state by sanctioning a body of laws. It is not enough for it to have established a perpetual government or to have provided once and for all the election of magistrates. In addition to the extraordinary assemblies that unforeseen situations can necessitate, there must be some fixed, periodic assemblies that nothing can abolish or prorogue, so that on a specific day the populace is rightfully convened by law, without the need for any other formal convocation. However, apart from these assemblies which are lawful by their date alone, any assembly of the people that has not been convened by the magistrates appointed for the task and in accordance with the prescribed forms should be regarded as illegitimate, and all that takes place there should be regarded as null, since the order itself to assemble ought to emanate from the law. As to the question of the greater or lesser frequency of legitimate assemblies, this depends on so many considerations that no precise rules can be given about it. All that can be said is that in general the more force a government has, the more frequently a sovereign ought t show itself. I will be told that this may be fine for a single town, but what is to be done when the state includes several? Will the sovereign authority be divided, or will it be concentrated in a single town with all the rest made subject to it? #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
Neither should be done. In the first place, the sovereign authority is simple and one; it cannot be divided without being destroyed. In the second place, a town cannot legitimately be in subjection to another town, any more than a nation can be in subjection to another nation, since the essence of the body politic consists in the harmony of obedience and liberty; and the words subject and sovereign are identical correlatives, whose meaning is combined in the single word “citizen.” Further it is always an evil to unite several towns in a single city, and anyone wanting to bring about this union should not expect to avoid its natural disadvantages. The abuses of large states should not be raised as an objection against someone who wants only small ones. However, how are small states to be given enough force to resist the large ones? Just as the Greek cities long ago resisted a great king, and more recently Holland and Switzerland have resisted the house of Austria and America has led a coupe d’état on the Republican party while they stick their heads and the sand like ostriches. Nevertheless, if the state cannot be reduced to appropriate boundaries, one expedient still remains: not to allow a fixed capital, to make the seat of government move from one town to another, and to assemble the estates of the country in each of them in their turn. Populate the territory uniformly, extend the same rights everywhere, spread abundance and life all over. In this way the state will become simultaneously as strong and as well governed as possible. Recall that town walks are made from the mere debris of rural houses. With each palace I see being erected in the capital, I believe I see an entire countryside turned into hovels. War is a leveller which spreads suffering with a wide swathe. It is also a teacher which pulls humans up sharply and forces them to look at their lives and, even more important, at themselves. War is the normal state of wild beasts. If human beings engage in it too, that is because they have not got rid of the tiger and wolf within themselves. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
For the marvelous grace of Your Creation—we put out our thanks to You, our God, for sun and moon and stars, for rain and dew and winds, for winter cod and summer heart. We pour forth our praise to You for mountains and hills, for springs and valleys, for rivers and seas. We praise You, O Lord, for planets growing in the Earth and water, for life inhabiting lakes and seas, for life creeping in soils and land, for creatures living in wetlands and waters, for life flying above Earth and sea, for beasts dwelling in woods and fields. How many and wonderful are Your works, our God! In wisdom you have made them all! However, we confess, dear Lord, as creatures privileged with the care and keeping of Your Creation that we have abused your Creation gifts through arrogance, ignorance, and greed. We confess risking permanent damage to Your handiwork; we confess impoverishing Creation’s ability to bring You praise. Yet, we confess that Your handiwork displays Your glory leaving all of us without excuse but to know You, we confess that Your handiwork provides the context of our living; it is our home, it is the realm in which we live the life of Your kingdom: Your kingdom that is now in our midst and coming yet more fully. We confess, Lord, that we often are unaware of how deeply we have hurt Your good Earth and its marvelous gifts. We confess that we often are unaware of how our abuse of Creation has also been an abuse of ourselves. O Lord, how long will it take before we are awaken to what we have done? How many waters must we pollute? How many woodlots must we destroy? How many forests must we despoil? How much soil must we erode and poison, O Lord? How much of Earth’s atmosphere must we contaminate? How many species must we abuse and extinguish? How many people must we degrade and kill with toxic wastes before we learn to love and respect your Creation; before we learn to love and respect our home? For our wrongs, Lord, we ask forgiveness. In sorrow for what we have done, we offer our repentance. We pray that our actions toward You and Your Creation are worthy of our repentance; that we will so act here on Earth that Heaven will not be a shock to us. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
We promise to reverence Your Creation as a gracious gift entrusted to us by You, our God. We promise anew to be stewards and not pillagers of what You have entrusted to us. Creator God, You have given us every reason to learn and promote this wisdom of lives lived in harmony with Creation. May we, your servants, increasingly serve. May we, your servants, increasingly come to love Your Creation as we increasingly come to love You, through Christ Jesus our Lord. Thou causest the wind to blow and the rain to fall. Thou sustainest the living with lovingkindness, and in great mercy callest the departed to everlasting life. Thou upholdest the falling, healest the sick, settest free those who are in bondage and keepest faith with those that sleep in the dust. Who is like unto Thee, Almighty King, who decreest death and life and bringest forth salvation? Who may be compared to Thee, Father of mercy, who in love rememberest Thy creatures unto life? Faithful art Thou to grant eternal life to the departed. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who callest the dead to life everlasting. Holy art Thou and Holy is Thy name and unto Thee holy beings render praise daily. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, the holy King. Thou endowest humans with knowledge and teachest humans understanding. May You continue to bless us with aspirational thought that is not suspended and be combined with a still mind. As we seek the Kingdom of Heaven, please open the gate way to our higher consciousness. We know this may certainly produce queer effects, beautiful reveries, refreshing deep sleep, Truth and Peace. The only way we can arrive at the goal we seek is by disciplining thought, prayer, and concentration, and the use it for all it is worth in enquiry into the meaning of life. Please protect us from the great dangers on Earth and the ill-formed experiments holding us down. May we be your students of the ultimate path and usefully practise using speech to uplift others. Please remove the sale air from the lungs and allow us to deeply inhale pure fresh air. The heart pumps about seventeen tons of blood a day, and gets no rest at night, hence it is the most overworked organ in the body. Please teach as you taught the ancients how to rest our hearts, thus increasing the span of life an also how to liberate a tremendous amount of life power, which revitalizes the cells of the body. Amen. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
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One Would Think Happiness is Rare?
The trouble with some people is that when they get into trouble, they start acting like cannibals. With mood disorders so prevalent in all societies, it is no wonder that they have been the focus of so much research. Great quantities of data about these disorders have been gathered. Still, clinicians have yet to understand fully all that they know. Several factors have been closely tied to unipolar depression, including biological abnormalities, a reduction in positive reinforcements, negative ways of thinking, a perception of helplessness, and life stress and other sociocultural influences. Indeed, more contributing factors have been associated with unipolar depression than with most other psychological disorders. Precisely how all of these factors relate to unipolar depression, however, is unclear. Different factors may be capable of initiating unipolar depression in different persons. Some people may, for example, begin with low serotonin activity, which predisposes them to react helplessly and negatively, and enjoy fewer pleasures in life. Others may first suffer a severe loss, which triggers helplessness reactions, low serotonin activity, and reductions in positive rewards. Regardless of the initial cause, these factors may merge into a “final common pathway” of unipolar depression. However, culture influences many people’s health and belief system and has an effect on the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. Some cultures have specific expectations of each age group that differ greatly from those in mainstream American society. Because of this difference, all age groups are exposed to conflict or clashes that may increase the risk for development of mental illness. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
Judging from the evening news and the spread of self-help books, one would think that happiness was rare. Ever psychologists seem far more interested in stuffing heartache. However, there is good news. A growing body of research indicates that most people’s lives are more upbeat than we think. In fact, 55 percent of adults in the United States of America say they laugh once an hour. In addition, most people around the World say they are happy—including those who are poor, unemployed, elderly, and disabled. Some say money buys happiness, well maybe not that much more. Wealthy people appear only slightly happier than those of modest means. Overall, only 1 person in 10 reports being “not too happy.” Although people are not happy every day, most seem to bounce back well from disappointments. Happy people also seem to remain happy from decade to decade, regardless of job changes, moves, and family changes. When treating people with unipolar depression, one method that seems helpful is to reintroduce clients to pleasurable events and activities. While reintroducing pleasurable events into a client’s life, the therapist also makes sure that the person’s various behaviours are reinforced correctly. Behaviourists have argued that when people become depressed, their negative behaviours—crying, complaining, or self-depreciation—keep others at a distance, reducing changes for positive reinforcement. To change this pattern, the therapist may use a contingency management approach, systematically ignoring a client’s depressive behaviours while praising or otherwise rewarding constructive statements and behaviour, such as going to work. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
Although formal treatment is typically needed for severe depression, personal efforts such as going on vacation or spending time with friends can often make a significant difference for people who are struggling with mild depression. Research shows, for example, that regular exercise help prevent or reduce feelings of depression as well as other psychological symptoms. Life does not always turn out the way people want it to, you may end up living around people you do not care for and feel isolated and have no friends. You may want to get back to a lifestyle that is more conducive to your well-being. However, one thing that I find that helps, besides exercise and music is to some times just shut down and stop talking to people. Take some time to be quiet and work through the negative emotions and pray about them. Also, happy movies help. I had the TV on, while I was using my station bike, and had sworn off Christmas movies this year because you know, sometimes situations are ongoing and every year some expect them to be resolved, and they are not yet. However, I got stuck watching 12 Pups for Christmas (2019) Starring Charlotte Sullivan and Donny Boaz. It was such a great movie and I highly recommend it. It is all about being in the prime of one’s life and then facing one unexpected situation after another, but one can see how God used Erin’s (Charlotte Sullivan’s) pain to put her in a better situation that she could not even imagine. The movie is so charming that I found myself smiling and laughing while watching it. I really enjoyed how the people all liked each other, and worked together and were open and optimistic and honest. The film reminded me of a passage in the Christian Bible, “Now therefore, do not be afraid. I will provide for and support you and your little ones. And he comforted them [imparting cheer, hope, strength] and spoke to their hearts [kindly],” reports Genesis 50.21. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
The film 12 Pups for Christmas shows one how devastating life events can be and how nothing is promised, and things are not perfect, but if you keep the right attitude and keep persevering and being kind, the Lord will make things work in your favour. Although most of the variance in adult dysfunctions involving pleasures of the flesh is explainable by concurrent relational problems, some childhood interpersonal experiences may be viewed as distal contributory causes. Two such issues that are clearly rooted in family socialization are negative attitudes toward sexuality and extreme religious orthodoxy. Both of these are more psychological than interpersonal constructs. However, each can be viewed as a result of socialization in the family of origin, and each is related to the other. Children who are reared with extremely orthodox beliefs and values may view pleasures of the flesh as generally inappropriate and improper behaviour, unless it is explicitly enacted with the goal of procreation. Armed with such attitudes, some individuals might experience adjustment problems when paired with partners of differing beliefs and values. Related to this are negative attitudes toward pleasures of the flesh. Certain child-rearing practices and family environments may leave a child with a tendency to associate pleasures of the flesh with feelings of guilt and shame. Other family experiences may lead the child to link pleasures of the flesh with disgrace, emotional pain, or betrayal. To the extent that these negative attitudes, often learned in childhood, are durable through the adult years, impairment in functioning during pleasures of the flesh is a likely consequence. Another early interpersonal experience that can impair adult pleasures of the flesh functioning is childhood sexual abuse, especially when this abuse is intrafamilial. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
Multiple studies show that people who experienced such abuse as children are more likely than those who have not to experience dysfunctions in pleasures of the flesh as adults. Two important caveats must be noted, however. First, these same studies show that childhood sexual abuse is situation in a matrix of aversive childhood and family-of-origin experiences (such as excessive conflict, low cohesion, poor boundary regulation, physical abuse, and parental neglect), and that it is associated with a similarly diverse matrix of adult psychosocial problems (such as separation, divorce, relational dissatisfaction, substance abuse, depression, somatization, and anxiety, to name just some). Each of these on its own may be sufficient to interfere with functioning in pleasures of the flesh. Disentangling and understanding the effects of sexual abuse in particular continues to be a challenge for mental health research. Second, there is no deterministic relationship between childhood sexual abuse and adult functioning. Some children who experienced sexual abuse go on to develop happy and healthy interpersonal relationships, and are indistinguishable from their nonabused peers. Undoubtedly, this resilience is an amalgamation of personal and socioenvironmental factors that allows them to minimize and overcome the ill effects of this trauma. These caveats notwithstanding, childhood sexual abuse is thought to disrupt attachment to caregivers, trust in others, the development of self-esteem, and a sense of mastery. When a survivour of such abuse is confronted with new developmental tasks, such as management and negotiation of adult pleasures of the flesh, these liabilities may be manifested in a variety of psychosocial problems—including pleasures of the flesh dysfunctions. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
Psychogenic sexual dysfunctions tend to coexist with other mental health problems that also have an obvious interpersonal basis. However, unlike problems such as depression or schizophrenia, for example, the comorbidity of sexual dysfunctions has not been as thoroughly researched. This is perhaps due in part to the difficulty of accurately assessing and diagnosing these problems and the fact that such assessment requires ruling out physiological origins. Studies of people identified as having a psychogenic sexual dysfunction reveal a 30 to 35 percent incidence of others psychological problems. One common problem that is concomitant to sexual dysfunction is depression. As an example, the odds ratio for erectile dysfunction has been estimated at 1.82 in the presence versus absence of depressive symptoms. A study of couples seeking therapy for sexual dysfunction indicated that rates of depression, anxiety disorders, and eating disorders were all elevated in contrast to those in the generational population. Lifetimes rates of affective disorders (major depression, dysthymia, and bipolar disorder) among the participants in this study were 21.5 percent and 38.3 percent for men and women, respectively. Associated rates of anxiety disorders were 19.9 percent and 37.3 respectively. Thus, problems like depression and anxiety are evident in the background of about 33 percent of those seeking treatment for sexual dysfunction. Like personality disorders, sexual dysfunctions tend t be comorbid with other sexual dysfunctions. In a large-sample, multisite pharmaceutical study, 40 percent of those with hypoactive sexual desire disorder were also diagnosed with a second sexual dysfunction. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
In view of the ill effect of anxiety on performance and depression on sexual desire, the comorbidity of these problems with sexual dysfunction is easily understood. However, it is equally evident that these problems are interconnected in at least some cases by interpersonal problems and stressors. When close relationships become distressed and/or when people have a history of interpersonal maltreatment, both depression and sexual dysfunction are likely consequences. Similarly, people who experience a great deal of anxiety in interpersonal contexts, perhaps because of poor social skills, may experience sexual dysfunctions that are secondary to that excessive anxiety. Psychogenic sexual dysfunctions appear to be every bit as much problems with couple relationships and a psychological sense of intimacy, as problems with the psychophysiology of human sexuality. People with psychogenic sexual dysfunctions often have intimacy problems that extend far beyond just sexual intimacy and include poor social and recreational intimacy with their partners as well. Psychogenic sexual dysfunctions may serve as regulative devices for addressing unresolved conflict and a lack of intimacy. Like those of other mental health problems, the symptoms of psychogenic sexual dysfunction may draw attention away from more substantial underlying interpersonal problems that a couple is unable or unwilling to address openly. They may also serve as a means of communicating distress indirectly. In either case, sexual dysfunctions may be indices of more pervasive interpersonal/relational problems. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
A number of relations themes are evident in studies of sexually dysfunctional couples. These include open conflict, as well as passivity, discouragement, a lack of agreement and understanding, and hostility that is often not expressed directly and openly. Some of these phenomena are even evident through observations of brief laboratory interactions between partners. Notwithstanding the associations between sexual dysfunctions and current relational problems, some interpersonal childhood experiences may be distal contributory causes of adult sexual dysfunctions. When children are socialized with strict orthodox religious beliefs and values, and/or when they learn negative attitudes toward sexuality, they are predisposed to experience psychogenic sexual dysfunctions as adults. A history of childhood sexual abuse is also more common among those with psychogenic sexual dysfunction, compared to their well-functioning counterparts. Such abuse may set the stage for views of sexuality as coercive, hostile, and motivated by malfeasance. Both somatoform disorders and psychogenic sexual dysfunctions involved the experience and expression of physical symptoms in the absence of any obvious medical or physiological cause. Each of these disorders is a sign of intrapersonal and interpersonal distress, and serves a communicative value. The interpersonal pathogenesis of somatoform disorders can be primarily located in family-of-origin experiences; although such experiences do play a role in psychogenic sexual dysfunctions, these dysfunctions more strongly signal troubles with family-of-orientation relationships. I remember the time when some brothers of the Lord were praying over me for a new release of the Holy Spirit. At a certain point they invited me to choose Jesus as the Lord of my life, freely and consciously. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
At that moment I happened to look up, and my eyes fell on the crucifix which was on the wall opposite above the altar. He seemed to have been there for some time, waiting for me. In an instant, this truth branded itself within me: “Make no mistake, this is the Jesus Christ you are choosing as your Lord, not a different rose-water version!” How often, since then, have I tried to admit the truth of those words! Being espoused to Christ means, here below, being “crucified with Christ,” but also in the hope of being glorified with Him. Joy is never absent, but it is a hope-filled joy (spe gaudentes). In other words, it is hoping to be happy, and happy to be hoping. “All who belong to Christ Jesus,” writes the Apostle—“have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires,” repots Galatians 5.24. It is a beautiful thing to die to the World for the Lord, so as to raise in Him. Earthly longings (eros) have been crucified; in the me there is left no spark of desire for mundane things. It is no joke to crucify one’s flesh with its passions and desires, especially pleasures of the flesh desires, which are among the most imperious of all. The desires of the flesh—self-indulgence—are always in opposition to the Spirit. Some have been brought to the edge of despair by temptations of the flesh. We are now living in a social context where it is no longer possible to rely on external safeguards for the defense of one’s chastity, as it was in the past—things like the separation of the genders, a rigorous filtering of contacts with the World, and all the countless other detailed precautions with which “Rules” usually surround the observance of this vow. Unconstrained communications and travel have created a new situation. The defence of one’s chastity is now for the most part in the hands of the individual, and it cannot rest on anything other than strong personal convictions, acquired precisely through contact with God in prayer and in His Word. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
It is this spirit and with this intention that we continue our reflections. Celibacy, then, is for the sake of the Kingdom. However, why does the Kingdom call for celibacy? Can it not be achieved and manifested completely through marriage? Some Fathers of the Church, such as John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor, thought that is Adam had not sinned, there would have been no marriage, with the sexual procreation that is now its distinguishing feature, because in the way in which it is now exercised, human sexuality is the fruit of original sin. However, from a mere biblical and less Platonic perspective it must be said that rather the reverse is true: that, had there been no sin there would have been no virginity, because the would have been no need to question marriage and sexuality and subject them to judgment. Poverty, chastity and obedience are not a renunciation—or worse, a condemnation—of a created good, but a rejection of the evil that has come to overlay that good. Therefore they are, by definition, a proclamation of the original goodness of created things. They are a way of imitating the Word of God Who, by taking flesh, took on all that belongs to human nature, but did not take on sin. “For we do not have a great High Priest Who is unable to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation, but One Who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sinning,” reports Hebrews 4.15. The Gospel counsels, and the vows based upon them, proclaim the goodness and beauty of God’s creation precisely by the denouncing the ambiguity of human creation. The inability to understand the value of virginity, and likewise of obedience and voluntary poverty, is always a sign that the sense of sin has disappeared from the horizon of faith. It is typical of periods of acute secularization and naïve optimism concerning humanity and the World. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
Seen in this light, poverty, chastity and obedience are the most eloquent proclamation there is of Christ’s redemption and of the Paschal Mystery, which does not cancel out the original creation, as the heretic Marcion thought, but it “recapitulates” it, as St. Irenaeus said, in other words, brings it out into the light from under the covering of sin. In this light it is also possible to understand the positive element, still valid today, in the Fathers’ insight that virginity was a return to the Heavenly state, but on condition that this return is not understood as bypassing marriage and human sexuality itself (male and female He created them), but only the sin with which they have been overlaid by human freedom. A virginal and chaste life if therefore in a very profound sense a paschal life. “I beg you, then, by God’s mercy, my brothers, to offer your bodies as a holy and living sacrifice which will be pleasing to God—this is your spiritual worship. Do not pattern yourselves after the ways of this World but transform yourselves by the renewal of your minds, so you will be able to discern what God’s will is—what is good, pleasing and perfect,” reports Romans 12.1-2. Their celibacy was the most delicious of all: transformative and liberating, and the instrument of its own success. However, the demons’ traps are evil thought. Become saved again, and commit your soul to God. We need to seek how to please God in our bodily members [as well as spiritually]. Everything we observe, and even more important, our way of observing it, is already culture and pattern of culture. If we cannot observe it, what is the sense of mentioning “human nature”? The wild Babes give up their individualistic mores and ideology, exempli gratia, selfishness or magic thinking or omnipotence, and join the tribe of Society; they are soicalised. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
You can teach people anything; if you use the right techniques of socializing or communicating, you can adapt them to anything. The essence of human nature is to be pretty indefinitely malleable. Humans are what suits a particular type of society in a particular historical age. This fateful idea, invented from time to time by philosophers, seems finally to be empirically evident in the most recent decades. For instance, in our highly organized system of machine production and its corresponding social relations, the practice is, by “vocational guidance,” to fit people wherever the products of the system need to be used up, the practice is, by advertising, to get people to consume them. This works. There is a human for every job and not many are left over, and the shelves are almost always cleared. Again, in the highly organized political industrial systems of Germany, Russia, and now China, it has been possible in a short time to condition great masses to perform as desired. Social scientists observer that these are the facts, and they also devise theories and techniques to produce more facts like them, for the social scientists too are part of the highly organized systems. Astonishingly different, however, is the opinion of experts who deal with human facts in a more raw, less highly processed, state. Those who have to cope with people in small groups rather than statistically, attending to them rather than to some systematic goal—parents and teachers, physicians and psychotherapists, police officers and wardens of jails, shop foremen and grievance committees—these experts are likely to hold stubbornly that there is a “human nature.” You cannot teach people some things or change them in some ways, if you persist, you are in for trouble. Contrariwise, if you do not provide them with certain things, they will fill the gaps with eccentric substitute. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
This is immediately evident when something goes wrong; for instance, when a child cannot learn to read because one has not yet developed the muscular accommodation of one’s eyes; if you persist, one withdraws or becomes tricky. Such a clear-cut cause (it is “physical”). However, the more important causes have the following form: the child does take on the culture habit, exempli gratia, early toilet training, and indeed the whole corresponding pattern of culture, but there is a minishing of force, grace, discrimination, intellect, feeling, in specific behaviours or even in one’s total behaviour. One may become too obedient and lacking in initiative, or impractically careful and squeamish; one may develop “psychosomatic” ailments like constipation. Let me give an instance even earlier in life: an infant nurtured in an institution without a particular nurse attending one during the first six months, does not seem to develop abnormally; but if during the end of the first year and for some time thereafter one is not given personal care, one will later be in some ways emotionally cold and unreachable—either some function has failed to develop, or one has already blocked it out as too frustrated and painful. In such examples, the loss of force, grace, and feeling seems to be evidence that somehow the acquired cultural habits do not draw on unimpeded outgoing energy, they are against the grain, they do not fit the child’s needs or appetites; therefore they have been ill adapted and not assimilated. That is, on this view we do not need to be able to say what “human nature” is in order to be able to day tht some training is “against human nature” and you persist in it at peril. Teachers and psychologists who deal practically with growing up and the blocks to growing up may never mention the word “human nature” (indeed, they are better off without too many priori ideas), but they cling stubbornly to the presumption that at every stage there is a developing potentiality not yet cultured, and not blank, and that makes possible the taking on of culture. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
We must draw “it” out, offer “it” opportunities, not violate “it” except for unavoidable reasons. What “it” is, is not definite. It is what, when appealed to in the right circumstances, gives behaviour that has force, grace, discrimination, feeling. This vagueness is of course quite sufficient for education, for education is an art. A good teacher feels one’s way, looking for response. The immediate horror humans perceive is one’s own death, but beyond that one begins to see the entire life process as carnage, as eating and being eaten. A terrible screaming pervades the Universe. Humans are the first to hear it. This is the vision we cannot accept. It drives towards madness or despair. What does Christianity do with this vision. It does not deny it; it makes it acceptable. What Christianity does for the true believer is give one strength to bear it. Redeems it. That is the word! The scheme of things redeems the way things are. However, what is redemption? It must be an interpretation. The scheme of things, therefore, is both a diagram of the something grand and an interpretation of the way things are as an essential step on the way to the something grand. The life process thereupon becomes less horrible and more bearable because it serves, however obscurely, a glorious end. When it is in the service of something grand, one’s individual life is redeemed. The beginning of the redemption of life is the beginning of culture. All culture is redemption. The history of culture is the history of changing forms by which a short and brutish life has been redeemed. The culture of people is the incarnation of its religion. Any religion, while it last, provides the framework for a culture, and protects the mass of humanity from boredom and despair. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
Humans search for a scheme of things larger than their own life, with greater authority, to which one may belong. The hunger from which this search issues is profound and inalienable. If one can find such a scheme and makes one’s life “mean” something in it, that is, contribute to it, make a difference, one will have ferried something of one’s mortal self across the gulf of death to become a part of something that will live on. The doomed life must leave a residue of value. The carrier and guarantor of this value is human-made scheme of things perceived as reality and presumed to be eternal. What can one say of the way things are? The constructions of the mind are not coextensive with existence, that there is something “out there,” a universe independent of humans, there before we arrived and to be there after we have disappeared. It affects us and we it. IT and we are in continual contact and interaction, and we know it not. We cannot bear to know. An angel, detached and immortal, could know; we, mired in mortality, are at risk. Interest deflects our knowing. Our lives depend on its being other than it is. In the midst of the way things are we know only the scheme of things in which we live. If someone is not treating you right today, go out of your way to be kinder than usual to that person. If your husband is not serving God, do not go around beating him over the head with your Bible, proselytizing him, nagging him, coercing him to attend church with you. No, just start being extra kind to him. Start living him in a fresh way. The Holy Bibles teaches, “It is the goodness of God that leads people to repentance,” reports Romans 2.4. God’s goodness expressed through you will overcome evil. Friend, love never fails. Now turn not a df ear to that which I have spoken, for My Word shall rise withing you with great revelation. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
For I am doing in this hour things that humans have not understood, just as was prophesied in the days of old. I said it by My prophets that you would not believe the reports of the things that I would do. Some will not believe, but the hour is coming that humans shall proclaim My Word boldly over their own bodies and it will cause sickness and disease to depart. Their words will cause the enemy to flee in terror. If anyone had a right to return evil instead of love, it was Joseph, the young man with the distinctive coat of many colours. His brothers hated him so much, they threw him into a deep pit and were going to kill him, but “out of the kindness of their hearts,” they decided instead to sell him into slavery. Years went by, and Joseph experienced all sorts of troubles and heartaches. However, Joseph kept a good attitude, and God continued to bless him. After thirteen years of being in prison for a crime he did not commit, God supernaturally promoted him to the second-highest position in Egypt. Joseph was in charge of the food supply when a famine struck the land, and his brothers traveled to Egypt, hoping to buy provisions for their families. At first they did not recognize their long-lost brother. Joseph finally said, “Do not you who I am? I am Joseph, your brother. I am the one you threw into the pit. I am the one you tried to kill, the brother you sold into slavery.” Can you imagine what was going through his brothers’ minds? Imagine the fear that must have griped their hearts! This was Joseph’s opportunity to pay back his brothers for the years of pain and suffering they had caused him. Now their lives were in his hands. Joseph could have ordered them killed or imprisoned for life. However, Joseph said, “Do not be afraid. I am not going to harm you. I am going to do good to you. I am going to give you all the food you need.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
The Christian Bible says, “Love does not hold a grudge. Love does not harbour unforgiveness,” report 1 Corinthians 13.5. You may have people in your life who have done you great wrong, and you have a right to be angry and bitter, or foolish and ghoulish, full of doom and gloom. You may feel as though your whole life had been stolen away by someone who has mistreated you or deceived you. However, if you will choose to let go of your grudge and forgive them, you can overcome that evil with good. You can get to the point where you can look at the people who have hurt your and return good for evil. If you do that, God will pour out His favour in your life in a fresh way. He will honour you; He will reward you, and He will make those wrongs right. When you can bless your worst enemies and do good to those who have used and abused you, that is when God will take that evil and turn it around for good. No matter what you have gone through, no matter who hurt you or whose fault it was for causing all the trauma and drama, let it go. Do not try to get even. Do not hold a grudge. Do not try to pay them back. God says show mercy. Aim for kindness. Seek to do good. You may be thinking, but that is just not fair! No, it is not. However, life is not fair. We have to remember that God is the One keeping the score. He is in control. And when you bless your enemies, you will never lose. God will always make it up to you. The power of the Lord shall rise withing humans until there will be a race of people on this Earth when I come that will stand against Satan and see him flee from them. They will stand without sickness or disease in their bodies. They will stand even before whole cities and proclaim, “In the name of Jesus, I break the power of sin over this city.” Then the walls of Satan will crumble and the power of God shall be loosed in that city. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
The wisdom of God shall flow unhindered and my power shall rule in the midst. Even as the darkness grows more morbid, the light shall grow more optimistic. My wisdom shall be released in greater measure and greater revelation as human take My Word at face value, even as I have spoken it. The tongue cannot be controlled by natural ability. It is an unruly evil in the unregenerate state. However, the wisdom of God that has come by the rebirth of the human spirit, imparted by the Holy Spirit to the hearts of humans, will cause the tongue to come into subjection to the spirit of humans, which is ordained of God to rule. It shall cause the body to conform to the Word of the living God. Dear Lord in Heaven, I dare to believer that You can take even the bad things that happen to your children and transform them into something good and useful, not merely in our own lies, but in the lives of other around us. You know, I am against taxes, I think they should be as long as possible and once politicians start taxing things to make improvements in areas that the budget cannot support, it leads to excessive taxes, which then leads to communism. One absurd tax is the bag tax. Sure, the thicker bags are good for people who can afford to buy them and have to walk with the groceries. However, it is a common courtesy to provide people with complimentary bags for purchasing items at your story. The supposed goal was to reduce plastic waste, but most people buy these thicker plastic bags anyway. Most stores do not allow reusable bags to come into their store because they may be contaminated with bacteria or viruses or infested with cock roaches and their eggs and can infest the stores, spread to other customers and make people fatally ill. Also, what about the people who can barely afford what they are buying? For some people, an extra $2.00 for twenty bags, for example, is a lot of money when they can barely afford what they are buying. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
However, I truly wish there was a way we could find some money in the budget to pay our service members and veterans $100,000.00 a year and lifelong medical benefits for their priceless service. And also, if we want law enforcement reform, why not pay officers the same wages and require that they obtain at least an Associates in Arts in psychology, law, or something so we know they have some understanding of what life is like outside of their family-of-origin and family-of-orientation. Some police are education, some have PhDs, and an educated officer may not be better at one’s job than a high school graduate, but I wonder what the studies say? It is possible that requiring an education would reduce conflict in the community and screen out officers who have a vendetta against other races, religions, creeds or genders. Also, regulating leaf blower nose and usage would be great. The government bans the use of fireplaces on certain days, which is sad because some people cannot afford to burn their heaters and knowing how much heat they are using helps them from keeping their electricity from getting shut off. People have trees they can cut down and burn for fuel. The system in America is set up, well, it was once set up to accommodate the rich, but the poor and rich are getting jilted, while the middle class is disappearing before your eyes like a dope fiend. And I have looked at some of these million dollar homes in California, and I am so disappointed. I expect something more and grand for $1 million. Sure, inflation is real, but wage inflation is not happening. Everything is just getting more and more expensive and cutting into people’s wages. In Sacramento, if you did not become established 10-20 years ago, and are not a professional and do not have two or more employed people in the house, the cost of living is almost unaffordable. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
The shrinkage of the nation-state reflects the appearance of a new-style global economy that has emerged since the Third Wave began its surge. Nation-states were the necessary political containers for nation-sized economies. Today the containers have not only sprung leaks, they have been made obsolete by their own success. First, there is the growth within them of regional economies that have attained a scale once associated with national economies. Second, the World economy to which they gave rise had exploded in size and is taking on strange new forms. Thus the global economy is dominated by the great transnational corporations. It is serviced by a ramified banking and financial industry that operates at electronic speeds. It breeds money and credit no nation can regulate. It moves toward transnational currencies—not a single “World money” but a variety of currencies or “meta-currencies,” each based on a “market basket” of national currencies or commodities. The global economy is torn by a World-scale conflict between resource supplies and users. It is riddled with shaky debt on a hitherto unimaginable scale. It is a mixed economy, with private capitalist and state-socialist enterprises forming joint ventures and working side by side. And its ideology is not laissez faire or Marxism, but globalism—the idea that nationalism is obsolete. Just as Second Wave created a slice of the population that had larger than local interests and became the base of nationalist ideologies, so the Third Wave gives rise to groups with larger than national interests. These for the base of the emerging globalist ideology sometimes called “planetary consciousness.” This consciousness is shared by multinational executives, long haired environmental campaigners, financiers, revolutionaries, intellectuals, poets, painters, not to mention members of the Trilateral Commission. I have even had a famous U.S. four-star general assure me that “the nation-state is dead.” #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
Globalism presents itself as more than an ideology serving the interests of a limited group. Precisely as nationalism claimed to speak for the whole nation, globalism claims to speak for the whole World. And its appearance is seen as an evolutionary necessity—a step closer to a “cosmic consciousness” that would embrace the Heavens as well. Therefore, at every level, from economics and politics to organization and ideology, we are witnessing a devastating attack, from within and without, on that pillar of Second Wave civilization: the nation-state. At the exact historical moment when many poor countries are desperately fighting to establish a national identity because nationhood in the past was necessary for successful industrialization, the rich countries, racing beyond industrialism, are diminished, displacing, or derogating the role of the nation. We can expect the next decades to be torn by struggle over the creation of new global institutions capable of faily representing the prenational as well and the postnational peoples of the World. Be praised my Lord with all Your creatures but especially with Brother Sun because You show us light and day through him and he is lovely glowing with a great shine from You my Lord: his definition. Be praised my Lord for Brother Wind and for the air and cloudy days and bright and all days else because through these You give Your creatures sustenance. Be praised my Lord for Sister Water because she shows great use and humbleness in hers and preciousness and depth. Be praised my Lord for Brother Fire through whom You light all nights upon the Earth because he is too lovely full of joy and manly strength. Be praised my Lord because our sister Mother Earth sustains and rules us and because she raises food to feed us; coloured flowers and grass. Be praised my Lord for those who pardon by Your love and suffer illness and grief. Bless those who undergo in silence the poor for whom you hold a crown. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
Be praised my Lord for Sister Death-of-Body whom no human living (as of yet) will escapes and piety those who die in mortal sin and everyone she finds who minds you bless: no second death to bring them hurt. Oh praise my Lord and bless my Lord and thank and serve my Lord with humbleness Triumphant. Just think, immortality is not too far away. Eventually scientists will find a cure of aging and death. For some it will give them more time to get right in the eyes of the Lord and do things they love, for others, it will allow them to evade eternal punishment…for a while. O Lord, open Thou my lips and my mouth shall declare Thy praise. Praised art Thou, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, mighty, revered and exalted God. Thou bestowest lovingkindness and possessest all things. Mindful of the patriarchs’ love for Thee, Thou wilt in Thy love bring a redeemer to their children’s children for the sake of Thy name. Remember us unto life, O King who delightest in life, and inscribe us in the Book of Life so that we may live worthily for Thy sake, O Lord of life. O King, Thou Helper, Redeemer and Shield, be Thou praised, O Lord, Shield of Abraham. Thou, O Lord, art mighty forever. Thou callest the dead to immortal life for Thou art might in deliverance. One may be lifted up by the light of a great experience or the presence of a great soul, but in the end one falls back to the consciousness one ordinarily has, to the self one ordinarily is. This is not to say tht what has happened is without value—on the contrary, such a glimpse is very important—but that under the thrill of its emotional accompaniments one may easily miscomprehend a part of it to the point of self-deception. The error is to believe that one has now been put in possession of all truth, or the highest truth, for all time. However, it is only a transient glimpse! If one were pure enough and prepared enough to receive the light in all its fullness and in all the parts of one’s being, the glimpse would not leave one. However, one is not. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22
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Why Can they Not Understand the Cold Logic of it?
Leaders have a significant role in creating a state of mind that promotes wisdom. They can serve as symbols of the moral unity of a community. They can express values and show one how to make the impossible dream become attained in possible stages. To know how to do it is skill. This World as we know it is passing away. God wants us to be free from anxiety. These are now the end times in which it is possible to live already as “children of the resurrection” in the manner of the World to come. However, there is a danger in seeing virginity and celibacy as a wonderful opportunity for a tranquil life, with no problems or worries. God wants us to be free from all anxiety. No matter what lifestyle one leads, there may be some things that one faces that are unpleasant. Yet, the goods, or affairs, of the Lord are the souls He died for: the Kingdom. This is why celibates and virgins exist: so that there will be someone, in the Church and in the World, who is concerned solely for God’s interests. It is not true that such people do not marry. Virgins are not people who renounce marriage. They are people who renounce life-long commitment to a creature. This becomes true and obvious for virgins from the moment when they make the person discover of Jesus as “Lord” of their life, and realize that this Lord is not Someone Who belongs only to the past (when He was on Earth), or only to the future (when we too will be with Him in Heave), but that, in virtue of His resurrection He is alive “in the Spirit” and is present at every moment in His Church. So it is not a questions of a virgin man or woman renouncing a “concrete” love for the sake of an “abstract” one, a real person for an imaginary Christ and with God, even leaving aside all the mystical significance usually associated with this term in religious language. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
We say of someone metaphorically that they have “espoused” a cause when they have given themselves wholly to it, body and soul, making the interests, risks, and success of that cause their own. In this sense we are entitled to say that the virgin has espoused the Kingdom or the Lord, but to a much greater degree, because virginity is not just espousing a “cause,” but also a person; not just for a time, but for eternity. The bond that binds the celibate and the virgin to the Lord is so total, so exclusive, that its only equivalent on the human level is when a man marries a woman. With all the more reason, the Christian celibate or virgin can make these words their own and say: “My soul is in love with Jesus Christ. Others will make sure that the World survives.” Having espoused the cause of the Kingdom of Heaven, we are called to serve that cause; having married a person, the Lord, we are called to please that person. “The unmarried person,” St. Paul says, “is concerned with the Lord’s affairs, with how to please the Lord.” Manicheanism was a dualistic, contrasting a Prince of Darkness with a God of Light. In this contest between light and dark, good and evil, the body of the Manichean was no more than a prison, created by demons, which trapped the good light withing. The great Manichean goal was to liberate that imprisoned light. The only way to achieve this was through celibacy, which would prevent the creation of new prisons, and other ascetic practices, which would release trapped light. In a maze of lost, we search for an informing principle, a truth that will teach us how to live, will define our task, enable us to transcend our folly and cruelty, to use ourselves up in a way that counts. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
The way to live should issue from our nature, from what it is we believer ourselves most deeply to be. We tend to assume that we know what we are, that our nature is obvious, given to us by direct observation of others and of ourselves; Just look around the World and look into your own heart and you will know the human condition. It is not so. What it is to be a human being is not clear at all, but deeply shrouded. Because, in the evolution from medieval times to present awareness, we have gained knowledge and the ability to deceive ourselves. We arrange not to know our nature, not to see what we are up to. Our self-deceptions are so dense, piled on so thick, like layers of paint on a Victorian being painted without stripping for over a century, layer after layer, laid on until it gets so thick it becomes an enamel. We have gone from stories to book, to the Internet and Television. There are so many layers of what we are supposed to be that it is hard to get a clear view of what we really are. Behind our loudly professed values of freedom, justice, and equality lies a propensity to violence far stronger and far deeper than is known to any of us, even the most cynical. It is all but invincible, invades even the bedroom, and corrupts what we call love. We indulge in vast hypocrisies, flagrant and subtle, to conceal from ourselves this destructiveness. We are in fact largely the opposite of what we think we are. And as we deceive ourselves, we deceive also others. Self-awareness comes into being in the midst of struggles for power and is immediately put to use. One defends oneself, or seeks advantage, by misrepresenting oneself. One does not think about it; it happens instantly, automatically, inalienably. It is not possible to abstain. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
One cannot be oneself. To be human is to be false. Awareness is inseparable from misrepresentation. The soul of self-awareness is deception. Somatoform disorders are often accompanied by other psychological problems. A study of over 1,000 adolescents indicated that almost half of those with a somatoform disorder also had at least one other documentable psychological disorder. Among adults with somatization disorder, 23 percent had one personality disorder, and 37 percent had two or more. The most frequently occurring personality disorder among the patients with somatization disorder in this study were avoidant, paranoid, self-defeating, obsessive-compulsive, histrionic, and antisocial. Some have estimated the rate of personality disorders to be as high as 60-70 percent among people with somatoform disorders. The pure heart, blind to its own purity, sees only outward; the reflective heart is devious. They reality to which that “truly” refers is a slippery item. “Say everything that comes to mind,” the analyst says to the analysand, “nothing must remain hidden”; but the first association scurries for cover as the second is being staged by the third, and the bottom of that barrel can never be scraped. Below the deepest uncovering one yet deeper is possible. From an interpersonal perspective, the coincidence of somatoform disorders and personality disorders is understandable. In most patients with somatoform disorders, illness behaviour is a lifestyle in which the sick role is a mode of relating to self and others…in relation to others the role provides strategies for eliciting care and exercising control. Recall that, by definition, personality disorders involve inflexible and maladaptive patterns of behaviour, with problems in the interpersonal domain. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
People with personality disorders often related to other people in ways that ill suited for the situation. The same reasons for this maladaptive relating to others undoubtedly also cause the somatization. In fact, somatization could be understood as an interpersonal manifestation of a personality disorder. Instead of communicating with other directly and openly, the person with a somatoform disorder develops symptoms in an effort to convey a message (neediness, desire for attention, et cetera) to other people. It is ways to envision how somatization could be a “functional” form of communication for persons with avoidant personality disorder, who shun direct communication with others; those histrionic personality disorders, who have a taste for drama; or those with dependent personality disorder, who want to be taken care of. However, the most important thing about human life is that we come upon from within and can know only from within. Many people stage their existence and block it from view with contrived sets that they call reality, and though they know those sets to be fake, so many labour endlessly to make them look real. And they go about those actions on that stage which accord with those sets, individuals come finally to believe they are real. The backdrop being them is forgotten. Somatoform disorders involve the experience and expression of distressing physical symptoms in the absence of any medical cause. The expression of distress through physical symptoms serves a number of social functions, such as secondary gain, signaling intrapersonal and interpersonal distress, and providing a temporary solution to a systemwide problem. The unchanging backdrop, the raw nature of existence, unadorned, unmediated, overwhelming one with dread, the way things are becoming too awful and too fearful to be endured. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
The set changes over the course of history, though they may seem fixed over the course of a lifetime. The set, as in a play, is the arrangement in which one lives, the scheme of things. Psychoanalysis attends to those distortions of mind that have come about as a result of mishaps and mistreatments in childhood. Not just analysts and analysands, but all of us, simply by being members of a culture permeated with the promise of psychology, share in the belief that such is possible. And as one, acting on tis belief go about the processing of analyzing the miseries visited upon us by the preceding generation, it comes insidiously to seem that all misery is of this kind, not destiny but mishap, that therefore if people generally were free of neuroses they would no longer torment themselves and their families, nor would tyrants torment their subjects (nor themselves even want to be tyrants), and that human life would then be happy and secure. Thus psychology slides into place as the modern ideology, the heir to religion. It is the scheme of things in which we live. Many people with somatoform disorders have a history of adverse childhood experiences, ranging from growing up in a family characterized by conflict, poor boundary regulation, little intimacy, excessive control, and exaggerate demands for success, to outright physical and sexual abuse. As in the case of substance use problems and eating disorders, modeling may play a role in the pathogenesis of somatoform disorders. Many such patients witnessed serious illness in their parents, and have a history of illness themselves. Two psychodynamically oriented theories of somatoform disorder postulate that insecure attachments prompt excessive care seeking in the form of physical symptom expression. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Many investigators see somatoform disorders as maladaptive attempts to communicate psychological and interpersonal distress. Research findings reveal a number of interpersonal problems that tend to covary with somatoform disorders, although some of these problems may be due to psychological distress more generally, rather than to somatoform disorders in particular. What is the minimum penalty for being a conscious and self-conscious creature living simultaneously in an eternal symbolic World of one’s own construction and in the natural World in which, looking straight ahead, one sees one’s death oncoming? Indeed, suffering that one might wish to consider as avoidable or treatable must one conclude issues, not from mistreatment, but from this condition? And, further, what portion of that mistreatment of human by human and of child by parent, all of which appears gratuitous, may prove to be the unavoidable outcome of conditions that define the human state itself? Alexithymia is a communicative phenomenon that is common among people with somatoform disorders; it entails an inability to express emotions and feelings to other people. This condition may contribute to the expression of distress through physical symptoms. At a sociological level, somatoform disorders may represent cultural idioms of distress. In many cultures, it may be more socially acceptable to have a “physical” illness than to express psychological distress. In such cultures, the expression of physical symptoms may be a proxy for conveying emotional distress to others. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
Somatoform disorders tend to be comorbid with personality disorders. In many cases, the somatization may be a manifestation of the maladaptive interpersonal styles that are inherent in personality disorders. However, it is still possible to set forth—with great clarity, concision, and bluntness—what one knows of the ways of power and the ways of the heart. Magic money and commerce keeps problems far away, their screams unheard. So it comes about to teach us what life is, or should be. The innocence we ascribe to the childhood of humanity is the innocence we have come to know only much later, east of Eden, the innocence possible to us within the knowledge of good and evil. Such innocence consists in following the rules that banish violence. Therefore, as one projects such obedience backward, one pictures a gentle Eden wherein the lion and the lamb lie down together. And right there we have got it dead wrong. The innocence of our prehistory, our Garden of Eden, is the innocence of our prehistory, our Garden of Eden, is the innocence of unlimited violence, of acting according to nature. There were then no taboos to set limits, hence no good and no evil. The boundary zone of our existence is a forbidden territory called the sacred. We know we are there by signs. Voices are lowered and hushed, we tread softly, look up respectfully, apprehensively. We are warned to keep away. Near the boundary itself we are taken over by fear and trembling. We are too close to God. Common sense tugs at our sleeve: Turn back! Beyond the limit is great power. Those who cross that limit are struck down. Some few, able to seize and control the thunderbolts, become gods. The sacred is a minefield barring the way back. It lies between us and the freedom we have lost, the violence we so fear and so desire, the rush, the oneness of life, the fusion, the continuity, the not-knowing. The approach is posted with taboos. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
God patrols the border ceaselessly, drive us onward, warn us not to look back. We can never go home again. Nor can we ever forget or stop longing. Before humankind was enlightened, the awful power beyond the natural limits, securely removed from the ability of humans to reach control or to manipulate, was invoked by our priests and medicine men and women to strengthen those moral and pleasures of the flesh limits that human, by one’s own will, is capable of violating. The giant lurking in the Earth who shakes our house down, one or some other giant just like him or her, we are told, patrols also the pleasures of the flesh and moral boundaries. Watch out! God is everywhere. If you transgress, He will punish you. Now we are enlightened; and enlightenment, it transpires, draws in its train strange, perhaps sinister implications. After the initial grand victories of reason come disturbing aftershocks. Natural limits have been devastated of meaning. If famine sweeps the land, that is bad luck, but it is not God punishing us or telling us something. It is but the impersonal, meaningless operation of natural forces. The awful and the terrifying beyond the natural limits, therefore, cannot be used to maintain the inviolability of moral and pleasures of the flesh limits. No longer can we lend to morality the authority of lightning, of earthquake, of tidal wave. The Enlightenment has washed us up on an alien shore: All of our limits are variables, all are withing our control. We may draw them in closer or push them out farther. With no authority beyond humanity, by what standard can we designate anything as absolutely wrong? Wrong beyond reach of reconsideration? Whatever the nature of the limit, beyond that limit lies power. And that further increment of power will increase the temptation to yet further violation for a yet further augmentation of power. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
Free to choose how to live, the way we choose is meaningless; living in the certainty of meaning, we live a life that is imposed. How did we arrive at such a condition? Try to imagine it. People are so bemused by the way business and politics are carried on at present, with all their intricate relationships, that they have ceased to be able to imagine alternatives. We seem to have lost our genius for inventing changes to satisfy crying needs. However, this stupor is inevitably the baleful influence of the very kind of organizational network that we have: the system pre-empts the available means and capital; it buys up as much of the intelligence as it can and muffles the voices of dissent; and then it irrefutably proclaims that itself is the only possibility of society, for nothing else is thinkable. Let me give a couple of examples of how this works. Supposed (as is the case) that a group of radio and TV broadcasters, competing in the Pickwickian fashion of semi-monopolies, control all the stations and channels in an area, amassing the capital and variously bribing Communications Commissioners in order to get them; and the broadcasters tailor their programs to meet the requirements of their advertisers, of the censorship, of their own slick and clique tastes, and of a broad common denominator of the audience, none of whom may be offended; They will then claim not only that the public wants the drivel that they give them, but indeed that nothing else is being created. Of course it is not! not for these media; why should a serious artist bother? Or suppose again (as is not quite the case) that in a group of universities only faculties are chosen that are “safe” to business people trustees or the politically appointed regents, and these faculties give out all the degrees and licenses and union cares to the new generation of students, and only such universities can get Foundation or government money for research, and research is incestuously staffed by the same sponsors and according to the same policy, and they allow no one but those they choose, to have access to either the classroom or expensive apparatus. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
With such a limited selection being allowed, it will then be claimed that there is no other learning or professional competence; that an inspired teacher is not “solid”; that the official projects are the direction of science; that progressive education is a failure; and finally, indeed—as in Dr. James Conant’s report on the high schools—that only 15 percent of the youth are “academically talented” enough to be taught hard subjects. This pre-empting of the means and the brains by the organization, and the shutting out of those who do not conform, can go so far as to cause delusions, as when recently the president of Merck and Company had the effrontery to warn the Congress that its investigation of profiteering in drugs might hinder the quest of scientific knowledge! as if the spirit of Vesalius and Pasteur depended on the financial arrangements of Merch and Company. However, it is in these circumstances that people put up with a system because “there are no alternatives.” And when one cannot think of anything to do, soon one ceases to think at all. To my mind the worst feature of our present organized system of doing things is its indirectness, its blurring of the object. The idea of directly addressing crying objective public needs, like shelter or education, and using our immense and indeed surplus resources to satisfy them, is anathema. For in the great interlocking system of corporations people live not by attending to the job, but by status, role playing, and tenure, and they work to maximize profits, prestige, or votes regardless of utility or even public disutility—exempli gratia, the plethora of cares has now become a public disutility, but automobile companies continue to manufacture them and persuade people to buy them. The indispensable premise of city planning, according to vice president of Webb and Knapp, is to make a “modest long-term profit on the promoter’s investment.” (His exact sentence, to a meeting of young planners, was, “What we’re going to build will be built only if some developer is going to make a profit from it.”!) #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
Obviously he is not directly interested in housing people or in city convenience and beauty; he is directly interested in being a good vice president of Webb and Knapp. That is his privilege, but it I not a useful goal, and an idealistic young fellow would not want to be such a man. Another example: Some earnest liberal Congress people are baffled “how to give Federal aid to education and not interfere in the curriculum and teaching.” However, when the teaching function is respected and assayed by the teacher’s peers-in-skill, no one can interfere, no one would dare (just as Harvard tossed out McCarthy). The sole function of administration is to smooth the way, but in this country we have the topsy-turvy situation that a teacher must devote oneself to satisfying the administrator and financier rather than to doing one’s job, and a universally admired teacher is fired for disobeying an administrative other that would hinder teaching. To further illustration the situation, these same Congress people are concerned “how to discourage low-level programming in private TV stations without censorship.” Their questions presupposes that in communication the prior thing is the existence of networks and channels, rather than something to communicate that needs diffusing. However, the prior thing is the program, and the only grounds for the license to the situation is its ability to transmit it. Nothing could be more uneducated than for the communications commission to give people who handle the means of broadcasting the inventing of what to broadcast, and then, disturbed at the poor quality, to worry about censorship. We live increasingly, then, in a system in which little direct attention is paid to the object, the function, the program, the task, the need; but immense attention to the role, procedure, prestige, and profit. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
We do not get the shelter and education because not enough mind is paid to those things. Naturally the system is inefficient; the overhead is high; the task is rarely done with love, style, and excitement, for such beauties emerge only from absorption in real objects; sometimes the task is not done at all; and those who could do it best become either cynical or resigned. “One human gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty,” reports Proverbs 11.24. When you center your life around yourself, not only do you miss out on God’s best, but you rob other people of the joy and blessings that God wants to give them through you. The Scripture says, “We should encourage one another daily,” reports Hebrews 3.13. It is easy to criticize and condemn, to point out everyone’s flaws and failures. However, God wants us to build people up, to be a blessing, speaking words of faith and success into their lives. It does not cost anything or take a lot of time to give somebody a compliment. What does it cost to tell your wife, “I love you. You are great. I am glad you are mind”? How long does it take to tell your employee, “You are doing a fine job. I appreciate your hard work”? Many people think those nice thoughts, but faith to verbalize them. It is not enough to think kind compliments; we need to express them. As the old saying puts it: Love is not love until you give it away.” We should get up each morning with an attitude that says: I am going to make somebody else happy today. I am going to help met somebody else’s need. Do not go through life as a taker; become a giver. Waste no time. Hop to it! Look for the grace of devotion. Alas, the search for it may take some time. Be patient and faithful. Accept the fact that there may be a waiting period. When it does return, welcome it warmly, and do not let it out of your grasp. Follow it wherever it leads. What else can you do? Except perhaps to commit to God the when’s and how’s of the Supernal Visitation. Just know that if devotion has come and gone, it will come again. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
What do you do when you feel interior devotion ebbing? Take great pains to humble yourself—that is about the only thing one can do. At the same time keep your spirits up. Why? Simple. God often gives you in one moment what He has denied you for a long time. That is to say, He sometimes waits for the end of your prayer before He gives the grace of devotion; He could just as well have given it at the beginning. Whatever, whichever, just do not get caught with a hangdog face when the Hound of Heaven comes a-calling. If grace were always sudden—that is to say, came when you prayed for it—it would catch you in your infirmity, and you would not be able to lift it off the floor. However, if it came later, when hope was green and Impatience wore Impatiens—that is when the grace of devotion seems destined to come. However, what happens when devotion does not come? What happens when it comes but then tiptoes out the back way without your noticing it? Well, if you are looking for someone to point a finger at, blame it all on yourself and your sins. What gets in the way of grace is often something quite small and manageable. However, if it is minuscule, then it should not be labeled majuscule. Except that in the matter of grace nothing is small, everything is humongous; any obstacle whether small or large, stops that flow of good. Remove it, the flow is restored, and all of the sudden, right before your eyes, is the grace of devotion you have been seeking so strenuously. What happens then? Immediately one has handed oneself over to God from the bottom of one’s heart, no longer hithering and dithering with this with this or that thing. Place yourself in His palm, and you will find yourself at home with you One True Friend. Why? That is because nothing will please or taste so well as the pleasure of the Divine Will. Who is the sort of person grace will occasionally grace? The one who pulls one’s intention up to God with a simple heart as one’s only winch and hoists oneself out of the slough of self-love. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
Yes, My beloved friend, you re a vase, an empty vase, and yes, Jesus Christ sometimes parades around with an empty watering can. However, some days the can is full, and would He bother to water one with His blessings if He thought one was full? One must renounce more perfectly than the lowest and, using contempt of self as a tool, die more to oneself, if one ever wants sudden grace to come again, to flood one till one overflows, and to save one’s heart from drowning. Then one will feel enriched, and one’s eyes will wonder, and one’s heart will enlarge, as Isaiah descried the phenomenon (60.5), because the hand of God is with one—an expression from Acts (11.21), and one has placed oneself on that hand forever. Behold that this is the kind of person who is blessed because one seeks God with one’s whole heart—a thought from the Psalmist (119.2)—and “does not let one’s soul slip into vanity,” as the Psalmist described one’s own spiritual journey (24.4). This person in receiving the Holy Eucharist is promised the great grace of Divine Union. That is because one does not dote on devotion and consolation as personal gifts to oneself. All one is concerned about is the Grand Dote, that is to say, devotion and consolation only as they are applied to the glory and honour of God. Get your mind off your problems and begin to help others, you will not have to worry about your needs. God will take care of them for you. Something supernatural happens when we get our eyes off ourselves and turn to the needs of those around us. The Old Testament teaches, “When you feed the hungry, when you clothe the naked, when you encourage the oppressed, then your life is going to break forth like dawn. Then your healing is going to quickly come,” reports Isaiah 58.7-8. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
In other words, when you reach out to hurting people, that is when God ensures that your needs are supplied. When you focus on being a blessing, God make sure that you are always blessed in abundance. When you are feeling sick, refuse to dwell in that sickness. In your time of greatest need, go to church and pray for other people who are sick and in need. Sow those seeds of healing. And just as the Scripture says, as one begins to help others people in need, you light will break forth like the dawn, and your own healing will come. If they would simply turn their attention away from their own needs and problems, and start to focus on being a blessing to other people, I am convinced that may people will receive the miracle they have been praying about. All too often we spend most of our time trying to be blessed. “God, what can You do for me? God, here is my prayer list. Can I have it by next Monday?” We need to look for opportunities to share God’s love, His gifts, and His goodness with others. The truth is, the more you help other, the more God will make sure that you are helped. You can do this in many practical ways. If you have things lying around your house or in storage that you are never going to use again, why not give those things away to someone who could use them? Those extra things are not doing you any good stacked in your attic, basement, or garage. If it is not meeting a need, turn it into a seed! Our minds can conjure up all kinds of excuses when God begins unclasping them. Human nature wants to hold on to everything. However, you probably have some clothes you have not worn in years; cooking utensils still packed in boxes from your last move, books, your children’s crib, and baby clothing, and all sorts of other things that you have not used in ages! #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
Most clutter experts say, “If you have not used an item within the past year, give it away!” If it is not meeting a need, turn it into a seed. Remember, we will reap what we sow. When you do good for other people, that is when God is going to make sure that His abundant blessings overtake you. If you want to live your best lie now, you must develop a lifestyle of giving: living to give instead of living to get. Have an attitude that says, Who can I bless today? Rather than Who can I get over on today? Dear Lord in Heaven, I know You have blessed me, and I want to be a blessing to others. Please help me not to be simply a consumer of Your blessings, but a person who passes blessings on to others. Other than God, the best-publicized and most powerful of the new forces is the transnational, or more commonly, the more commonly, the multinational corporation. What we have seen in the past 50 years is an extraordinary globalization of production, based not merely on the export of raw materials or finished manufactured goods from one country to another, but on the organization of production across national lines. The transnational corporation (or TNC) may do research in one country, manufacture components in another, assemble them in a third, sell the manufactured goods in a fourth, deposit its surplus funds in a fifth, and so on. It may have operating affiliates in hundreds of countries. The size, importance, and political power of this new player in the global game has skyrocketed. Unilever, McDonalds, Apple, and BMW are all examples of TNCs. Transnational Corporations are among the World’s biggest economic institutions. Some experts suggest that the 300 largest TNCs own or control at least one-quarter of the entire World’s productive assets. This is worth approximately $5 trillion USD. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
Recent years have seen rapid growth in global trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) in all sectors of activity. Transnational corporations from developed countries have been driving this growth, but increasingly, TNCs from developed countries have been driving this growth, but increasingly TNCs from developing countries are contributing. Between 1990 and 2003, the values of assets of foreign affiliates of the World’s TNC’s increased by a factor of five, and sales and employment have multiplied respectively by three and two. At the same time, World gross domestic product (GDP) in current prices increased by 160 percent. Today, there are an estimated 77,000 TNCs in the World, with more than 770,000 foreign affiliates. As stated above, these affiliates generated approximately $5 Trillion USD in value added, employed some 65 million workers, and exported goods and services valued at more than $4.5 trillion USD. Even those figures probably understand the role of TNCs in the global economy, both because of measurement difficulties and because firms carry out their transnational activities through a variety of non-equity arrangements—subcontracting, franchising, licensing, and the like, as well as through the formation of strategic alliances. One of the most “transnational” major TNCs is Nestle, the Swiss food giant; 91 percent of its total assets, 98 percent of its sales, and 97 percent of its workforce are foreign based. These TNCs represent a crucial new factor in the World system—and a challenge to the nation-state. TNCs have invested significantly in developing countries. During the period 1996-2006, such commitments amounted to about $246 billion, with a concentration in Latin America. That is more than the approved budget for the 2021-2022 of the United Nations, which is $6.37 billion. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
Currently, General Motors annual sales revenue of $122.5 billion is higher than the Gross National Product of Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and several other countries. It was once said that the sun never set on the British Empire. Today the sun does set on the British Empire, but not on the scores of global corporate empires including GM, BMW, Samsung, and Maytag. Marxists tend to see national governments as handmaidens of corporate power, and therefore stress the commonality of interests between the two, yet the TNCs very often have their own interest that run counter to those of their “home” nations, and vice versa. “British” TNCs have violated British embargos. “American” TNCs have violated U.S. regulations. During the OPEC embargo the transnational oil companies rationed deliveries between countries according to their own, not national, priorities. National loyalties fade quickly when opportunities present themselves elsewhere, so tht TNCs transfer jobs from country to country to escape environmental rules, and play off host countries against one another. So it is not just because of taxes that companies are leaving the California and the United States of America. For the past few centuries, the World had been neatly divided into a set of independent, sovereign nation-states. With the emergence of literally hundred of multinational or global corporations, this organization of the World into mutually exclusive political entities is now being overlaid by a network of economic institutions. In this matrix, the power that once belonged exclusively to the nation-state when it was the only major force operating on the World scene is, at least in relative terms, sharply reduced. Indeed, transnationals have already grown so large that they have taken on some of the features of the nation-state itself-including their own corps of quasi-diplomats and their own highly effective intelligence agencies. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
The multinationals intelligence needs are not much different from those of the United States of America, France, or any other country. Indeed, if it does not describe the increasingly important roles played by the apparats of Exxon, Chase Manhattan, Honda, Lockheed Phillis and others, any discussion of the intelligence battles among the CIA, KGB, and their satellite agencies will be incomplete. Sometimes cooperating with their “home” nation, sometimes exploiting it, sometimes executing its policies, sometimes using it to execute their own, the TNCs are neither all good nor all bad. However, with their ability to shunt billions back and forth instantly across national boundaries, their power to deploy technology and to move relatively quickly, they have often outflanked and outrun national governments. It is not just, or even mainly, a question of whether international companies can circumvent particular regional laws and regulations. It is that our whole framework of thought and reaction is founded in the concept of the sovereign nation state [while] international corporations are rendering this notion invalid. In terms of the global power system, the rise of the great transnationals has reduced, rather than strengthen, the role of the nation-state at precisely the time when centrifugal pressures from blow threaten to part it at the seams. And with that in mind, many are also concerned that Russia has 12,000 tankers, while the United States of America has 6,000. Looks like America needs to bulk up its defense budget, and take care of its own people to make sure they remain “The World’s Super Holy One.” Dear Lord in Heaven, I ran through the fields and gathered flowers of a thousand colours—and now I pour them out at Your feet. Their beauty and their brightness shout for joy in Your presence. You created the flowers of the fields and made each one far more lovely than all the skill of humans could design. Please accept my joy along with theirs, this field of blossoms at Your feet. Holy One, as the wind blows through these flowers till they dance in the ecstasy of creation, please send Your Spirit to blow through my being till I too bloom and dance with the fulness of Your life. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
The glimpse is a precious thing but it is not enough. The human who has had it has also a new problem: how to find it again and how to turn it into an all-time state of mind, continuing through all kinds of circumstances and experiences. And how can one bring one’s everyday life into harmony with it? Please cause us, O Lord our God, to lie down in peace, and raise us up again, O our King, unto life Spread over us Thy tabernacle of peace. Direct us aright through Thine own good counsel. Save us for Thy name’s sake. Be Thou a shield about us. Remove from us every enemy, pestilence, sword, famine, and sorrow. Please help us, O Lord, to resist temptation. Please shelter us with Thy protecting love, for Thou art our guardian and deliver. Yea, Thou God and King art gracious and compassionate. Please Guard Thou our going out and our coming in unto life and peace, hence forth and forevermore. Please blessed be Thou, O Lord, who guardest Thy people of America forever. Blessed be the Lord forevermore. Amen and Amen. Blessed from America be the Lord who dwelleth in America. Praise the Lord. Blessed be the Lord God, the God of America, who alone doeth wondrous things. Blessed be His glorious name forever. Let the whole Earth be filled with His glory. Amen and Amen. May the glory of the Lord endure forever; let the Lord rejoice in His works. Blessed be the nae of the Lord from this time forth and forever. For the Lord will not forsake His people for His great name’s sake; for the Lord taketh delight in making you a people for Himself. And when all the people beheld the glory of the Lord, they fell on their faces and exclaimed: The Lord, He is God; the Lord, He is God. And the Lord shall be King over all the Earth; on that day shall the Lord be One, and His name one. May Thy lovingkindness, O Lord, be upon us, for we have placed our hope in Thee. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
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If Sparta and Rome Perished, What State Can Hope to Last Forever?
It is never too late to be what you might have been. This is the first motive for virginity and celibacy, deriving from the fact that the Kingdom has already come. Let us now go back to the foundational words of Jesus Christ to discover the second motive: it, too, is inherent in the nature of the Kingdom. We were saying that, in another sense, the Kingdom of God has “not yet” come, it is on the way. It has to come in intensity within the Church (how many areas inside ourselves are still pagan and need to be evangelized!). It must come in extension, until it reached the ends of the Earth. How many nations and entire continents are still waiting for the light of the Gospel! Now here is the motive that flows from this: since God’s Kingdom has not yet come but is on the way, we need men and women who will devote themselves full-time and wholeheartedly to the coming of that Kingdom. And this brings us to the missionary or apostolic dimension of virginity and celibacy, which flows quite obviously and without any forcing from Jesus’ words “for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven.” Today there is a great deal of talk about the “quality of life.” It is said that the most important thing is not to increase the quantity of life on our planet, but to raise its quality. By “quality” people generally means the quality of hygiene, health care or culture. However, there is also a spiritual quality of life, which is the most important, because it concerns the human soul—what remains of a person in eternity. Those who are virgins for the sake of the Kingdom are called to spend all their energies in raising this spiritual quality of life—quite apart from the fact that they are often the ones who do most, in the best and most disinterested way, to raise the other quality of life, in hygiene, health care, and culture. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
In every act of procreation there is an element of selfish desire. When a man and woman produce a child, they give a gifts, certainly, but they also “gift each other.” They fulfill themselves, but they also “fulfill each other.” They need the encounter with the other for their own fulfillment and enrichment. On the other hand, when the Trinity creates, it confers fulfillment. Since it is already perfectly happy and complete in itself, it has no need of further fulfillment. “You have created all things” says Eucharistic Prayer IV, “to fill your creatures with every blessing and lead all men to the joyful vision of your light.” Here, virginity shows its most beautiful characteristic, which is gratuity. Christian virgin men and women imitate this gratuity to some degree when they love and care for children who are not their own according to the flesh, nurse the sick people of others, care for other people’s old folk, and when they carry the weight of other people’s sins, bring them before God in intercession for the World. Celibate childlessness is tragedy but rather a sign of holiness. A number of themes emerged over the years: the virtue of virginity, or the reborn virginity of celibacy; the primacy of God’s community of believers rather than human families in society; and increasingly, the carnal, lustful, seductive nature of humans. There is no greater calamity connect with [marital] captivity than to be the victim of another’s lust. It is laws which seem to make the difference between marriage and fornication; through diversity of illicitness, not through the nature of the things itself. The body is not meant for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. While you remain chaste and virgins you are equal to the angels of God. For chastity has made even angels. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
As Christianity matured, its devotees strove for lifelong celibacy in the face of intense social pressures to marry and procreate. Celibates lived the lives of angels and built around themselves another, unsecular society of believers no longer bound by the familiar blood ties of family and kinship. Moreover, because each individual had free choice about reserving one’s body for Christian celibacy or giving it to mainstream society, alternative communities eventually sprang up for those choosing the former; convents, nunneries, and a celibate upper clergy. Christianity also developed striking and satisfying rituals of participation, transformation, and promotion. Baptism, for example, delivered believers into angelhood; the Holy Eucharist transported them into an intimacy with God. Early Christianity’s ongoing theological debate about virginity sought to clarify how humans related to each other, and whether their bodies belonged to society or to themselves, to manage as they chose. Against the backdrop of their highly stratified World, even the poorest Christians were offered the virginity of their bodies as vehicles to carry them to an angelic life, with access to the holiest of holies, the one God. Faithful Christians, poor as well as rich, woman as well as men, could wrest control of their bodies from society and dedicate them to Godly celibacy, an empowering act that raised them up to the company of angels. Christianity’s obsession with chastity has blazed at meltdown intensity ever since Christ’s birth to his virgin mother. This obsession targets all Christians, and though it focuses especially on women and religious, it embraces even married believers. However, somatoform disorders are often a means of expressing psychological and/or interpersonal distress to others. The audience for these displays my well be the same individuals who were instrumental in creating the distress. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Evidence for this cause of somatoform disorders can be found in research showing that people with these disorders have obvious interpersonal distress, and the expression of these symptoms has implicit communicative value. People with hypochondriasis often exhibit symptoms of social phobia and fear of criticism from others, as well as elevated loneliness. Patients with somatic symptoms not attributable to organic causes report greater interpersonal and social problems than those with organically caused pain. In a study of over 5,000 patients there was an association between psychological distress and symptoms without a medical explanation was generally consistent across different cultural groups. Studies of specific types of somatic symptoms present an equally compelling case for distressed interpersonal relationships at their core. When people with myofascial disorders were compared to those with medically documented arthritis, the patients with arthritis indicated that they had more available family and network support than those with myofascial disorders, who also appeared to experience significantly more conflict with members of their social networks. The extent to which patients’ personal relationships were supportive rather than conflictual was significantly, and negatively, correlated with their reports of pain. A similar pattern of findings is evident in a study of elderly people, whose rated satisfaction with social interaction protected against the experience of somatic symptoms that are commonly associated with depression (exempli gratia, trouble falling asleep, diminished appetite). One can find vigorous somatization in distressed marital and other family-of-orientation relationships. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
Early family studies of patients diagnosed with hysteria (somatization disorder) showed a high prevalence of separation, divorce, and sexual dysfunction. The elevated incidence of sexual problems and impairment in social roles among married patents with pain disorder lead researcher to conclude that the chronic illness or pain becomes a scapegoat towards which the couple can direct their energies rather than to the underlying material dysfunction, so affording the marriage a degree of stability. In the family context, individuals with somatization are also more likely to be married to spouses with alcoholism, to abuse or neglect their children, and to have serious marital problems. Patients who perceive high levels of criticism in their families have been known to report poorer physical health and to make more office visits to physicians than those reporting less family criticism. A unique experimental study with married couples shows that the experience of physical pain can be exacerbated by interpersonal stress. Researchers were randomly assigned patients with chronic back pain and their spouses to discuss an issue that was stressful or to simply describe some line drawings to each other. After this manipulation, subject were instructed to ride an exercise bicycle at a steady pace, assisted by feedback from their spouses, for 20 minutes or until they felt too much pain to continue. Over twice as many subjects in the stressful-interaction condition as in the nonstressful-interaction condition terminated the bicycle ride prior to the 20-minute time limit. This rare experimental investigation shows that interpersonal stress can precipitate the experience of pain and the avoidance of physically demanding activities. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
The expression of somatic symptoms and complaints tends to be synchronous with feelings of negative affect. In this longitudinal study, depression and anxiety improved and worsened in conjunction with physical symptoms. Since these symptoms often had no physiological basis, these findings suggest that the symptom expression may have been a proxy for more direct expression of psychological distress. A key assumption is that such symptoms are not mere artifacts of inner distress, but that they are interpersonally functional indicators of that distress. Somatic symptoms may be an alternative to direct communication of distress. Among children with low levels of social competence at time 1, there was a positive relationship between the experience of negative life events and somatic complaints at time 2. However, there was no such relationship for children with higher levels of social competence. Socially competent children have good communication skills and satisfactory relationships at their disposal. Presumably such individuals can cope with the experience of stress through expressing their reactions and concerns to others and through soliciting social support. However, these mechanisms are unavailable to the child lacking in social competence; hence the expression of somatic symptoms. People with somatization disorder often suffer from alexithymia. Alexithymia is a difficulty in describing emotions and feelings verbally. People with this problem tend to focus on external events rather than on inner emotions and wishes. In this context, physical symptoms may be a means of communicating some emotional distress when the person is unable to express it verbally. For example, anxiety and fear are often accompanied by a number of bodily sensations that may include stomach pain and muscle tensions. Rather than convey feelings of fear to other people, an individual with alexithymia will focus on one’s physical symptoms, complaining of muscle aches and stomach pain, instead of talking about the feeling of anxiety and what is causing that feeling. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
The alexithymia hypothesis has received some empirical support. Researcher obtained 5-minute speech samples from patients at a family practice center. Those with somatization disorder used many words in the “not” category (exempli gratia, “not,” “cannot,” “never”), suggesting a preoccupation with negativism, and very few words from emotion categories (exempli gratia, “angry,” “happy”), compared to patient controls. A further analysis of this data set revealed that the patients with somatization were 4.5 times more likely to make statements that involved “I am,” such as “I am going off deep,” “I am tired,” and “I am going to fall,” than groups of patients with paranoia. These examples illustrate that equation of self with negativity in the discourse of patients with somatization disorder. The role of culture in the somatoform disorders cannot be overlooked. Somatic symptoms have been described as cultural idioms of distress. Cultures vary in their acceptance of individuals who express and experience largely “emotional” problems. In some cultures, it is more appropriate to have physical symptoms than psychological problems. Accordingly, the somatic symptoms of people in these cultures and subcultures are considered to be idioms of distress—their own unique and culturally accepted, if not prescribed, mechanisms for expressing their emotional distress. Asian cultures are often held up as examples of contexts in which depression and other psychological disorders are not tolerated to the same extent as physical problems. Consequently, a high prevalence of somatization is expected in such cultures, although this notion has been challenged. Researchers has also question the role of culture in promoting somatization, given the ubiquity of the relationship between psychological distress and somatic symptoms across the range of cultures that they have studied. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Although this is obviously a hypothesis that is indeed of more attention and evaluation, somatization may be a socially and culturally constructed mechanism for communicating psychological distress to others. “What is in it for me?” everyone wants to know nowadays. Many people are blatantly unashamedly living for themselves. They are not interested in other people. They will not take time to help others in need. They focus only on what they want, what they need, what they feel will most benefit themselves. Ironically, this selfish attitude condemns them to a living shallow, unrewarding lives. No matter how much they acquire for themselves, they are never satisfied. God, however, is a giver, if you want Him to pour out His blessings and favour in your life, then you must learn to be a giver and not a taker. Quit trying to figure out what everybody can do for you, and start trying to figure out what you can do for somebody else. We were not made to function as self-involved people, thinking only of ourselves. No, God created us to be givers. And you will never be truly fulfilled as a human being until you learn the simple secret of how to give your life away. You may not realize it, but it is extremely selfish to be dwelling on your problems, always thinking about what you want or need, and hardly noticing the many needs of others all around you. If you are having a problem, one of the best things you can do is to help solve somebody else’s problem. If you want your dreams to come to pass, help someone else fulfill one’s dreams. Start sowing some seeds so God can bring you a harvest. When we meet other people’s needs, God always meets our needs. We were created to give, not simply to please ourselves. If you miss that truth, you will miss the abundant, overflowing, joy-filled life that God has in store for you. #RnadolphHarris 8 of 20
However, when you reach out to other people in need, God will make sure that your own needs are supplied. If you are lonely or down and discouraged today, do not sit around feeling sorry for yourself. Get your mind off yourself and go help meet someone else’s need. Go visit the nursing home or children’s hospital. Call a friend and encourage that person. If you are struggling financially, go out and help somebody who has less than you have. You need to sow some seeds so God can bring you a harvest. Even giving a smile or a hug can be a meaningful task. Or mowing someone’s law, going to the grocery store for them, or writing someone an encouraging letter. Someone needs what you have to share. Somebody needs your smile. Someone needs your love. Someone needs your friendship. Someone needs your encouragement. God did not make us to function as “Lone Rangers.” He created us to be free, but He did not intend for us to be independent of each other. We really do need on another. If you want God to bless your life, start being a blessing to others. “God so loved the World, that he gave his only begotten Son,” reports John 3.16. Your body is like a child; you can train it to obey your words. You have trained that old dog at your house to do certain things, or maybe your cat or bird. James says that you can train every beast, bird, serpent, and thing in the sea. Humankind by their natural ability can train a dog, a bird, or any beast. Once we had a parakeet that we trained to talk. We taught it by saying the same words over and over. My grandmother had one whose name was Mr. Peepers. The bird could say it as clear as anyone. It would say, “Mr. Peepers is a pretty bird,” and it would sound just like my grandmother. Parakeets do not really understand words, but they can be trained to talk. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Your dog does not understand either. It is repeating over and over of the same name until the dog comes when you say that name. You train animals with words. Now what makes you think that your body is less intelligent than a dog? What makes you think that you cannot train the human body to obey the voice of your spirit by the words of your mouth? It can be done, for the body was designed to be obedient to words. You had to train your body to pray. It had to be obedient to the spirit human. The words we speak in prayer do have a definite effect on our bodies. When we pray or continue to say the problem, the body reacts in line with our speaking prayer. Learn to use the Word of God to control your body. Paul said, “Mortify the deeds of the body.” How do you do that? You cannot take a knife to mortify the deeds of the body; you will hurt yourself. However, you can use words to put to death its deeds by training the body to react to God’s Word. You can cause your body to come into subjection to your spirit. Paul said, “I keep my body and bring it under lest while I preach the gospel I become a castaway.” In the literal Greek, Paul actually said, “I buffet my body.” Buffet means “to slap with an open hand or clenched fist.” Train your spirit man to believe what you say will come to pass by practicing tongue control. In the area of sickness, I believe we give place to the devil when we say, “Wonder what is wrong with me?” The devil can then get out his little flip chart and say, “Well, would you believe you are taking the flu?” We say, “Well, I have not been feeling too good.” Then we begin to reason, “It could be the flu. My neighbour had it last week and I went over and prayed for him. That must be where I caught it.” Satan suggested it and you reasoned yourself into it! #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Then your first desire is to tell someone that you believe you have the flu. If you will just quit thinking and talking about how you feel and say what God said (Matthew 8.17), you an stop 50 percent of it right there. Now do not misunderstand what I said. I did not say that it was all in your mind. I do not deny that the disease exists—I deny its right to exist in my body. Do not give place to the devil. Just refuse to give him any place. If you do not embrace them, many times the symptoms will go away. Your body obeys your words—positive or negative, good or bad. Some would say, “What if I make a faith confession and still get sick?” Just keep saying what God said. Do not base your faith on experience, but on God’s Word. You keep confessing God’s Word until it becomes a revelation in your spirit. It takes time to train your spirit. You may get sick several times while you are training, but do not quit just because you are not perfected yet. It is not a fad; it is a way of life. If you continue to say, “I am sick,” your words will stop your body’s resistance to that disease or virus. A few years ago, the Lord was dealing with me about the power of words and the authority they have over the body. One morning while attending a meeting at the Lake of the Ozarks, I woke up with a headache. It was just pounding. I seldom have a headache, and my first thought was, “I wonder what I am taking.” Then I said, “Wait a minute, I refuse to have it.” I decided I would act on what the Lord had been showing me about Paul brining his body int subjection. So I just slapped myself on the forehead with the palm of my hand and said, “Head, you stop that in the name of Jesus. You come into line with the Word of God.” Within two minutes, the headache was gone. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
Now with other things, it has taken a longer period of time for the manifestation to come. Several years ago, I had ulcers. I received my healing by confessing God’s Word over a period of about three months. Those symptoms tried to come back from time to time, but I learned to resist them instead of receiving them. I would slap my body with my hand and say aloud, Stop that in the name of Jesus. Body, you come into agreement with the Word of God. I am healed by the stripes of Jesus. Someone said, “Why, that is silly.” Well, it was not their body that was hurting. It was mine, and it worked! They do their dog that way. They slap him and say, “Stop that,” or “Get out of the house. Get out!” They think nothing of it. However, if you slap your body and tell it what to do, they think you are strange. If your dog understands that language, you know that your body must be more intelligent than an animal. “O how great is the multitude of Your candies, sweets that the fearful know not of,” wrote the Psalmist (31.19). When I call to mind some Devouts approaching your Sacrament with great devotion and affection, O Lord, I turn a hundred shades of pink that I should even think of approaching Your altar, the table of Holy Communion so tepidly, so frigidly. The result is that I remain arid and without affection of heart, that I am not totally ascended to Your presence, my God, not so vehemently attracted and affected as many others have been. These last could not restrain themselves from crying when confronted with the desire for Communion and sensible love of the heart. However, they longed, equally with the mouth of the heart and body, for You, God, the Living Fountain, the Source of the Well. They were not able to temper, let alone to satisfy, their appetite except when they received Your Host with all spiritual eagerness. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
How truly flaming is the faith of Devouts! And how truly amazing that that is not a bad proof of the existence of Your Sacred Presence! For the Apostles truly knew their Lord in the breaking of the bread, as noted by the Evangelist Luke (24.35); their hearts burned strongly in them as they walked with Jesus by the lakeside. Such great affection, such vehement love and ardour are often a long way from my reach and devotion. I know I am a pathetic case, Good Jesus, my Divine Friend, sweet and mild. Grant that I a poor pauper who has always had his hand out, may feel a little of the cordial affection of Your love as it is found in Holy Communion. May my faith convalesce more quickly, and my hope progress in Your goodness. Your charity once holocausted and Your manna once tastes, may they never fail me. Since Your mercy is powerful, O Lord, grant me the desired grace, ad in the spirit of ardour, when the Day of Your Pleasure comes, greet me like Your long lost friend. Although I do not flare up with the great desire of those special Devouts of Yours, nonetheless I do keep a steady flame with the help of Your grace, that is to say, a desire for that Great Desire, praying and desiring that I might become a participant in all such friendships of Yours and to be numbered among that Holy Company. Father, please help me to get my eyes off myself and to see the many needs in the people all around me. May I be a means of help, comfort, and encouragement to someone else today. When, through the medium of meditation exercise of the awakening by human skill or Nature’s charm of aesthetic appreciation, beginners feel a new joy or an unusual peace, they are too often carried away into extravagant exaggeration of the happening. What seems like a tremendous event may be so in its effect on their inexperienced minds, but mostly it is only a skimming of the surface. To realize its further possibilities, it ought to be used as a starting point for exploration in depth. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
When one is willing to let of the self-centered ego and the grace can manifest, there may be this union with one’s higher nature, with the Overself. It is usually not a permanent experience but the possibility of its becoming one is always there. Then then new outlook seems perfectly natural. Let one not be presumptuous. One has not attained the true goal yet despite these noteworthy experiences. For one’s present knowledge of the Overself comes to one partly through the imagination, partly through the emotions, partly through the intellect, and only partly through the Overself. It is authentic but inferior. One must learn to get it through the understanding which is also authentic, but superior. A continuous insight, present all the time, is the goal, not a passing glimpse. What one has gained is good but not enough, is mystical but not philosophically mystical. For it is not but a flash when it has yet to become constant; it is now partial when it has yet to become full. Its felt presence should be intimate and inseparable as well as clear and complete. When insight continues whatever one’s occupation of the hour may be, it can be called philosophic. The notion that the glimpse is the goal is a wrong one, usually corrected by time. A glimpse is only a beginning, and those who are willing to follow it up may be ready to study philosophy and learn why this World is only a husk. It must be penetrated, the husk removed and the kernel revealed, for a truer understanding, both of the World and oneself, to be gained. Because they come to an unprepared and unpurified person, these transient glimpses are not adequate, full, and clear. Insight, however, possesses all these qualities. Aspirants should understand that they have no right to expect a spiritual illumination to prolong its brief duration and stay forever with them, much less demand it, so long as they have not made themselves scrupulously fit for such a quest. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Just as the private will acts constantly against the general will, so the government makes a continual effort against sovereignty. The more this effort increases, the more the constitution is altered. And since there is here no other corporate will which, by resisting the will of the prince, would create an equilibrium with it, sooner or later the prince must finally oppress the sovereign and break the social treaty. That is the inherent and inevitable vice which, from the birth of the body politic, tends unceasingly to destroy it, just as old age and death destroy the human body. There are two general ways in which a government degenerates, namely, when it shrinks, or when the state dissolves. The government shrinks when it passes from a large to a small number, that is to say, from democracy to aristocracy, and from aristocracy to royalty. That is its natural inclination. If it were to go backward from a small number to a large number, it could be said to slacken, but this reverse progression is impossible. In fact, the government never changes its form except when its exhausted energy leaves it too enfeebled to be capable of preserving what belongs to it. Now if it were to become still more slack while it expanded, its force would become entirely nil; it would be still less likely to subsist. It must therefore wind up and tighten its force in proportion as it gives way; otherwise the state it sustains would fall into ruin. The dissolution of the state can come about in two way. First, when the prince no longer administers the state in accordance with the laws and usurps the sovereign power. In that case a remarkable change takes place, namely that it is not the government but the state that shrinks. I mean that the state as a whole is dissolved, and another is formed inside it, composed exclusively of the members of the government, and which is no longer anything for the rest of the populace but its master and tyrant. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
So that the instant that the government usurps sovereignty, the social compact is broke, and all ordinary citizens, on recovering by right their natural liberty, are forced but not obliged to obey. The same thing happens also when the members of the government separately usurp the power they should only exercise as a body. This is no less an infraction of the laws, and produces even greater disorder. Under these circumstances, there are, so to speak, as many princes as magistrates, and the state, no less divided than the government, perishes or changes its form. When the state dissolves, the abuse of government, whatever it is, takes the common name anarchy. To distinguish, democracy degenerates into ochlocracy, aristocracy into oligarchy. I would add that royalty degenerates into tyranny, however this latter term is equivocal and requires an explanation. In the ordinary sense a tyrant is a king who governs with violence and without regard for justice and the laws. In the strict sense, a tyrant is a private individual who arrogates to oneself royal authority without having any right to it. This is how the Greeks understood the word tyrant. They gave the name indifferently to good an bad princes whose authority was not legitimate. (For all are considered and are called tyrants who use perpetual power in a city accustomed to liberty.) Thus tyrants and usurper are two perfectly synonymous words. To give different names to different things, I call the usurper of royal authority a tyrant, and the usurper of sovereign power despots. The tyrant is someone who intrudes oneself, contrary to the laws, in order to govern according to the laws. The despot is someone who places oneself above the laws themselves. Thus the tyrant need not be a despot, but the despot is always a tyrant. Such is the natural and inevitable tendency of the best constituted governments. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
If Sparta and Rome perished, what state can hope to last forever? If we wish to form a durable establishment, let us then not dream of making it eternal. To succeed, one must not attempt the impossible or flatter oneself with giving to the work of humans a solidity that things human do not allow. The body politic, like the human body, begins to die from the very moment of its birth, and carries within itself the causes of its destruction. However, both can have a constitution that is more or less robust and suited to preserve them for a longer or shorter time. The constitution of humans is the work of nature; the constitution of the state is the work of art. It is not within humans’ power to prolong their lives; it is within their power to prolong the life of the state as far as possible, by giving it the best constitution it can have. If no unforeseen accident brings about its premature fall, the best constituted state will come to an end, but later than another. The principle of political life is in the sovereign authority. Legislative power is the heart of the state; the executive power is the brain, which gives movement to all the parts. The brain can fall into paralysis and yet the individual may still live. A human may remain an imbecile and live. However, once the heart has ceased its functions, the animal is dead. It is not through laws that the state subsists; it is through legislative power. Yesterday’s law does not obligate today, but tacit consent is presumed from silence, and the sovereign is take to be giving incessant confirmation to the laws it does not abrogate while having the power to do so. Whatever it has once declared it wants, it always wants, unless it revokes its declaration. Why then is so much respect paid to ancient laws? For just this very reason. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
We must believe that nothing but the excellence of the ancient wills could have preserved them for so long. If the sovereign had not constantly recognized them to be salutary, it would have revoked them a thousand times. This is why, far from growing weak, the laws continually acquire new force in every well constituted state. The prejudice in favour of antiquity each day renders them more venerable. On the other hand, whatever the laws weaken as they grow old, this proves that there is no longer a legislative power, and that the state is no longer alive. Orthodox Communism is a typical nineteenth-century product. The doctrine arose out of a completely materialistic view of history. It was formulated in an age when the mechanistic conception of life had captured the thinking World. It led naturally to an ethic of hatred and violence. It excluded all consideration of the higher destiny of humans. Consequently it is emotionally unbalanced and intellectually unsatisfactory. The evil lies less in the doctrine itself, which is a confused mixture of nonsense and wisdom, of justice and crime, than in its human leaders. They are humans without a conscience and maniacs entrenched in the seats of power. They trade on this confusion of doctrine to suborn the masses who lack the capacity to understand the inner source of Communism and its inability to redeem its promises. They achieve for themselves positions of power because they mercilessly push aside and trample all who are hapless enough to stand in their way. One who thinks in terms of class hatred and class murder reveals oneself as being naturally neurotic or malignant. As such one is unfit to lead people into a better condition than before and can only lead them into a worse one. The average Communist is unfit to lead a people or govern a nation. One is an extraordinary compound of keen critical thinking and irrational obsession and class prejudices; consequently one’s thinking is distorted and unbalanced. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
The Communist rulers lives in a private Marxist World of one’s own, which one stupidly imagines to be a real World. However, the greatest defect in oneself and the greatest danger to others is the powerful hatred which actuates one and which has made one in fact a pathological case. One has become semi-insane because one cannot escape from it. Many Communist revolutions fail to bring a better society, a happier, healthier, and more honourable World for the underdog, because they fail to recognize that the only way this could be achieved was by leaders of disinterested character and superior quality descending to the service of the lower classes. If it comes from the mentally ungrown and ethically immature passes themselves, the reconstruction of the World’s social and economic order cannot succeed. This has been clearly demonstrated by the melancholy history and comparative failure of the brutal attentions by some nations. It could not be achieved by leaders of inferior character and merit rising from the ranks of the masses. The right way of socioeconomic progress is from the top downwards and not from the bottom upwards. The fruits of wisdom cannot come from below. However, this does not mean they come from the aristocracy of blood; they can come only from aristocracy of mind and character. The masses will be best served by the human who disdains their approbation and waves aside their applause. For intellectual awakening of a people does not begin as awakening of the masses; it begins as an awakening of the educated classes and proceeds downwards to the people. The masses must naturally follow more intelligent leaders, assimilate the ideas which are earlier embraced by their betters but which are gradually filtered down and thus rendered more acceptable. For it is not the ignorant blind toilers who can perceive the crowning principle of right reconstruction; they can perceive only their immediate needs, not their ultimate ones. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
Therefore the creation of a new order must not come from below but from above. It must come from the intellectual cream, the spiritual elite of society—from those who can reflect philosophically and serve selflessly and act calmly. They stand on the mountain peak, as it were, and see clearly what ought to be done whereas the masses are herded on the plains and can only run hither or thither as their emotions drive them. Praise wet snow falling early. Praise the shadow my neighbour’s chimney casts on the tile roof even this gray December day that should, they say, have been white. Praise the invisible sun burning beyond the white cold sky, giving us light and the chimney’s shadow. Praise God and the Angels, the unknow, that which imagined us, which stays our hand, our murderous hand, and gives us still, in the shadow of death, our daily life, and the dream still of goodwill, of peace on Earth Praise flow and change, night and the pulse of day. True and certain it is that there is one God, and there is none like unto Him. It is He who redeemed us from the might of tyrants, and executed judgment upon all our oppressors. Great are the things that God hath done; His wonders are without number. He causes us to triumph over our enemies and raise up our glory above our foes. Wondrously He visited judgment upon Pharoah, Performing signs and wonders in the land of the United States. He brought forth the child of America from slavery unto freedom. In every age the Lord hath been our hope; He rescued us from enemies who sought to destroy us. May He continue His protecting care over America, and guard all His children from disaster. When the children of America beheld the might of the Lord, they gave thanks unto Him and praised His name. They accepted His Sovereignty willingly, and sang a song unto Him. Moses and the Children of America exultingly proclaimed: Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the mighty? Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holiness, revered in praises, doing wonders? When Thou didst rescue America at September 11, 2001, Thy children beheld Thy supreme power. This is my God! they exclaimed, and said: The Lord shall reign forever and ever. As Thou didst deliver America from a power mightier so mayest Thou redeem all Thy children from oppression. Blessed art Thou, O Lord. Redeemer of America. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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Randolph Harris II International Institute 